Lilly Posted July 19, 2026

Senior Director, CMC Project Management, Bioconjugate Modalities

Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America FULL_TIME
Manufacturing & CMC Senior Director

Lilly is the source of truth for this posting and owns the application process. We surface normalized context and market comparison you won't find on the original listing.

About this opportunity

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve. This is hard, urgent, selfless work, but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us.

The Senior Director, CMC Project Management will provide strategic and operational leadership for cross-functional CMC team(s) and will partner with CMC scientific and technical leaders with accountability for technical deliverables. CMC Project Management is the program and project management arm of our critical Product Research and Development group. CMC Project Managers are responsible for leading the creation, development, communication, and implementation of integrated CMC plans for assets from portfolio entry to global submissions/approvals and launch.

Effectively partner with global program teams and therapeutic areas to translate clinical, asset and portfolio strategy into clear CMC development and delivery goals for cross-functional CMC teams.

Lead the creation, development, communication, and implementation of integrated CMC plans for assets with the functional CMC areas from portfolio entry through global submissions, approvals, and launch.

Leverage portfolio knowledge, development, and financial acumen to enable investment strategy and optimization at both project and portfolio level.

Drive cross-functional CMC teams to maximize the value of data, create bold, competitive plans, anticipate risks, effectively communicate risks, enable high quality decisions at fast speed and implement decisions.

Understand when and how to appropriately raise issues to teams and to stakeholders. Keep both team members and stakeholders fully apprised of project status and issues at the right level of detail.

Develop high performing matrix teams with an ability to quickly identify gaps in team efficiency and implement remediation efforts to ensure project success.

Support Due Diligence efforts by leading CMC development plans while integrating and communicating key findings with stakeholders.

Mentor new PMs in the management of a development project: team dynamics, understanding stages of development and how functional inputs interact to ensure project progression, processes relating to CMC development, strategic document preparation, and PM best practices.

Participate in or lead continuous improvement projects, which significantly impact the work and/or effectiveness of CMC development.

Basic Requirements:

BS/BA degree in a scientific or engineering discipline with 10+ years of industry drug development/commercialization experience OR

5+ years of industry drug development experience with an advanced degree

Experience leading CMC development across the multi-component bioconjugate supply chain, including antibody intermediate, linker-payload, conjugation, and drug product, to align timelines, quality, and deliverables across internal teams and external partners.

Must be succinct communicator with proficiency in English (written and spoken)

Strong leadership, communication, risk management, and decision‑making skills

Willing to relocate to Indianapolis, Indiana

Additional Preferences:

Advanced degree strongly preferred (MS, MBA, PhD or PharmD)

Demonstrated deep technical knowledge and experience of bioconjugate modality drug development, commercialization and manufacturing processes, including antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), antibody peptide conjugates (APCs), antibody RNA conjugates (ARCs), and/or peptide RNA conjugates (PRCs)

Practical experience (formal or informal) in project management of cross-functional projects

Ability lead cross-functional team(s) and together solve complex problems

Ability to rapidly become proficient in new tools

Demonstrated ability to communicate complex issues timely, accurately, and succinctly

This role requires on-site presence at the Indianapolis facilities.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form ( https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation ) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

Lilly is proud to be an EEO Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia (AMECA), Black Employees at Lilly (BE@Lilly), Chinese Culture Network (CCN), EnAble, Evolve, Lilly Indian Network (LIN), Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), Pride (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN) and Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL).

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location.  The anticipated wage for this position is

$156,000 - $228,800

Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

#WeAreLilly

Job details

Seniority
Senior Director
Function
Manufacturing & CMC
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Manufacturing & CMC role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 89 comparable Senior Director Manufacturing & CMC roles across 21 biopharma companies.

89Comparable roles tracked
86Currently active
21Companies hiring similar roles
8Countries represented

Salary context

60 of 89 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.

This roleSubject $156,000/yr – $228,800/yr
Lowest disclosed · Project Controls Director, Global Facilities Delivery · Lilly $129,000/yr – $209,000/yr
Highest disclosed · Exec Director, Viral Vector Process Development · Kite Pharma, Inc. $255,425/yr – $330,550/yr
Peer group range $169,000 – $292,988 (median $222,900)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 89 comparable roles

United States71
India9
Netherlands3
Ireland2
Germany1
Switzerland1

+ 2 more countries

Seniority mix

89 of 89 peers have a known seniority level

Director64
Senior Director20
Executive/VP5

Therapeutic area mix

2 of 89 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology1
Vaccines & Infectious Disease1

Similar opportunities

The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.

60%similar
Lilly Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America Senior Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Lilly Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America Senior Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Merck Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America Senior Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Gilead Sciences, Inc. Foster City, United States Senior Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (USA) Renss, United States Senior Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Hospira, Inc. McPherson, United States Senior Director
Same function Same seniority Same country

How we calculate "similar"

No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.

Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.

60%
Sr. Director-Purification and Viral Safety
Lilly · Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America · Senior Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Senior Director, Commercial Supply Chain TA Lead
Gilead Sciences, Inc. · Foster City, United States · Senior Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Senior Director, Digital Product & Process Owner - Sourcing & Category Strategy
E.R. Squibb & Sons,L.L.C. · Princeton, United States · Senior Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
GFD HSE Sr Director
Lilly · Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America · Senior Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
Unmatched or unknown dimensions score exactly the same: 0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.