Postdoctoral Scientist - Transdermal Delivery (DDCS)

at  Lilly

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.

ORGANIZATION OVERVIEW:

The Drug Delivery and New Product Innovation group within Lilly’s DDCS (Delivery and Device Connected Solutions) function studies physiological barriers across various routes of administration to apply and create novel patient centric drug delivery solutions. With a broad focus to develop injection device platforms and novel delivery devices to improve patient care, the group focuses in serving as a center of excellence in the following areas:

• Injection physiology and new device ideation
• Novel routes of administration/new modalities
• Drug delivery of new modalities (such as nucleic acid therapeutics), monoclonal antibodies, synthetic peptides, and small molecules
• Digital biomarkers and nanomedicine

We are seeking a highly motivated, skilled, and creative scientific/engineering post doc to contribute to projects that operate at the interface of devices, drug products, and physiology. As the Lilly molecule portfolio expands, our team will complement our molecule and formulation colleagues with engineering expertise to understand how devices and procedures can be designed to optimally deliver medicines across the transdermal interface. Our ideal teammate, motivated by curiosity, will explore and contribute to establishing first principles of delivery, shine as an inclusive member of a highly multi-disciplinary environment, and relentlessly pursue creative solutions for patients. They must be an effective collaborator with many different constituents including local team members, Lilly colleagues in Cambridge, external partners, and industrial and academic collaborators.

BASIC REQUIREMENTS:

• Hands-on research experience developing transdermal products such as patches and microneedle systems including skills related to prototyping drug-in-adhesive formulations, high-throughput screening, flux performance measurements, and associated analytical method knowledge.
• PhD in Biomedical, Materials, Controlled Release, Colloidal Systems, or Chemical Engineering or related fields preferred.

ADDITIONAL SKILLS/PREFERENCES:

• Effective technical writing, verbal communication, and presentation skills
• Desire and ability to coach/mentor engineering talent
• Strong communication skills and the ability to be an inclusive leader/colleague in a highly interdisciplinary environment
• Familiarity with small molecule and large molecule medicines and related physiology
• Experience designing and performing pre-clinical and/or clinical studies
• Familiarity with medical device regulatory environment and principles

• Plan and implement transdermal drug delivery and device projects that involve materials, chemistry, and biological expertise
• Support the creation and development of critical laboratory capability for transdermal delivery device prototyping, formulation, and performance testing
• Oversee, design, and execute preclinical and clinical studies for transdermal delivery systems to increase fundamental knowledge and inform delivery device design based on PK, dose, and ADME information.
• Connect across Lilly organizations to ensure device and delivery programs in transdermal are integrated with therapeutic areas and PRD development teams
• Understand IP, freedom to operate, and competitive landscape in targeted areas of research
• Identify, evaluate, and monitor external delivery technologies in the transdermal space, build business case, and drive appropriate partnerships
• Ability to plan and execute flux studies, understanding processing of various skin types, knowledge of test required to understand barrier properties of skin,
• Ability to understand structure and transport of molecule. In silico work exposure, role of permeation enhancers
• Ability to carry out high throughput screening of transdermal flux studies and flux calculations.