Chemist/Senior Chemist ADC Drug-Linker Synthetic Process Development

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

At Lilly, we serve an extraordinary purpose. We make a difference for people around the globe by discovering, developing and delivering medicines that help them live longer, healthier, more active lives. Not only do we deliver breakthrough medications, but you also can count on us to develop creative solutions to support communities through philanthropy and volunteerism.

Organization Overview:  

The current position focuses on small-molecule drug-linker synthetic chemistry.  The current opportunity is within the Bioproduct Research and Development (BR&D) organization, which is a multidisciplinary organization focused on the development and commercialization of biologic therapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies and bioconjugates.  Due to a strategic commitment to the growth of novel modalities such as Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs) and an exciting pipeline of investigational medicines within the Lilly portfolio, we are seeking outstanding candidates to work at this exciting small molecule – biologics interface.  The successful candidate will interface closely with the biologics development in BR&D and with the Synthetic Molecule Design and Development organization (SMDD) at Lilly. 

Position Summary:  

To meet the needs of Lilly’s expanding and diverse portfolio of ADCs, our team is tasked with growing the chemistry infrastructure to conduct the synthesis and process development of highly-potent and/or cytotoxic ADC drug-linkers. We will utilize a combination of in-house and external development, while building the capabilities to develop and transfer processes to internal and external manufacturing partners. A successful applicant should bring a skillset and knowledge to help grow our team’s capabilities, research facilities, and infrastructure.  Lilly has an expanding and diverse portfolio of ADCs that require thorough drug-linker process development.  

Responsibilities: 

• Synthesize complex payloads and drug-linkers for preclinical tox studies and collaborate across internal Lilly networks to implement and deliver material and information via technical reports. 

• Collaborate with members of the Lilly Discovery chemistry teams to understand and validate requirements for synthesis scale up.  

• Work closely with early phase Discovery and Toxicology groups to support new and emerging assets in the portfolio via synthetic material supply 

• Independently problem-solve in the laboratory setting to overcome synthetic challenges and improve upon existing workflows. 

• Maintain laboratory equipment and manage laboratory inventory/consumables. 

• Serve as key point of contact for laboratory troubleshooting and develop chemistry solutions for process development problems in ‘real-time.’ 

• Execute laboratory experiments to obtain data to support process deve