Roche Posted August 13, 2026

Senior DMPK-PD Project Leader

Basel, Basel-City, Switzerland FULL_TIME
Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research Senior

Roche 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 Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections,  where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters.

The Position

In Roche’s Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development organisation (pRED), we make transformative medicines for patients in order to tackle some of the world’s toughest unmet healthcare needs. At pRED, we are united by our mission to transform science into medicines. Together, we create a culture defined by curiosity, responsibility, and humility, where our talented people are empowered and inspired to bring forward extraordinary life-changing innovation at speed.

At the intersection of science and innovation, pRED’s Pharmaceutical Sciences (PS) organisation enables the discovery and development of safe and effective therapeutics at optimal doses in relevant populations with a vision to power translation, continuously improve the accuracy of our predictions and accelerate the development of tomorrow's medicines. By seamlessly integrating our three core pillars, Translational Safety, Translational Pharmacology, and Biomarkers, we drive End-to-End asset development across the entire value chain, from target assessment to on-market support. Our mission is to continuously improve predictive accuracy, optimise dosing strategies for the right patient populations, and accelerate the development of tomorrow's safe and effective therapeutics.

The Opportunity

As an experienced DMPK-PD Project Leader within the Translational DMPK-PD Department, you will be pivotal in ensuring the right drug is delivered at the right dose, safely and efficaciously to patients. You will lead nonclinical and translational strategies, collaborating across therapeutic areas to transform scientific hypotheses into groundbreaking clinical candidates.

Your Impact & Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership: Define and lead advanced drug design, optimisation strategies, and comprehensive compound profiling, integrating cutting-edge DMPK principles with target biology validation and complex translational PK/PD concepts.

Translational Expertise: Serve as the subject matter expert, guiding early discovery teams in developing sophisticated translational strategies for clinical evaluation of target modulation, leveraging deep biochemical and pharmacological knowledge.

Advanced Modelling & Simulation (M&S): Direct advanced M&S activities (including complex PKPD, PBPK, DDI, and sophisticated human dose/regimen prediction) to critically inform and de-risk projects from Lead Optimisation (LO) through early and late-stage clinical development (EIH, Ph 2/3).

Regulatory Mastery: Author and present definitive, high-quality scientific assessments of non-clinical DMPK data for critical internal program reviews and all major external regulatory submissions (IND, IB, CTA, NDA, BLA), ensuring global compliance and accelerated timelines.

Implementation & Innovation: Pioneer and oversee the implementation of robust biomarker and bioanalytical strategies in close partnership with key stakeholders to maximise patient safety and therapeutic benefit.

Cross-Functional Influence: Champion transparent, data-driven decision-making, acting as a trusted advisor and cultivating high-trust professional relationships across global project teams, governance bodies, and external partnerships.

Who You Are

You hold a PharmD or PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Pharmacology, Bioengineering or similar, coupled with over 15 - 20 years of post-PhD progressive industry experience in a senior pharmacokinetic-related role.

You possess deep, comprehensive expertise across the entire discovery, preclinical and development spectrum, covering PK characterisation, distribution, and PKPD for diverse modalities (small molecules, biologics, novel therapeutics), grounded in authoritative knowledge of pharmacology and physiology.

You demonstrate mastery of advanced modelling and simulation platforms (e.g., Phoenix, Berkeley Madonna, GastroPlus, SimCyp) and possess practical experience or a strong drive to apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) methodologies to evolve DMPK strategies.

You combine exceptional PK/PD understanding with outstanding communication, negotiation, and proven senior leadership experience, adept at guiding highly complex, multi-disciplinary projects.

You are fully accountable for defining strategic outcomes, ensuring expert delivery, and skillfully navigating and resolving critical issues across organisational and geographical boundaries.

You are an inclusive, authentic leader who champions diversity, mentors colleagues, and actively fosters a high-trust, high-performance environment where every team member is empowered to contribute their best.

At Roche, we aim high to deliver life-changing healthcare solutions. If you’re ready to make a meaningful impact on patients and healthcare systems worldwide, this is the place for you.

 

 

Where pay transparency applies, details are provided based on the primary posting location. For this role, the primary location is Basel. If you are interested in additional locations where the role may be available, we will provide the relevant compensation details later in the hiring process.

Who we are

A healthier future drives us to innovate. Together, more than 100’000 employees across the globe are dedicated to advance science, ensuring everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Our efforts result in more than 26 million people treated with our medicines and over 30 billion tests conducted using our Diagnostics products. We empower each other to explore new possibilities, foster creativity, and keep our ambitions high, so we can deliver life-changing healthcare solutions that make a global impact.

Let’s build a healthier future, together.

Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Job details

Seniority
Senior
Function
Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Basel, Basel-City, Switzerland
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 188 comparable Senior Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research roles across 30 biopharma companies.

188Comparable roles tracked
170Currently active
30Companies hiring similar roles
12Countries represented

Salary context

62 of 188 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 Not listed on this posting
Highest disclosed · Senior Principal Scientist, Pharmacokinetics · Merck $194,100/yr – $305,600/yr
Peer group range $105,700 – $249,850 (median $164,150)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 188 comparable roles

United States154
India8
Germany5
United Kingdom5
Canada4
China's Mainland3

+ 6 more countries

Seniority mix

188 of 188 peers have a known seniority level

Senior110
Principal57
Associate Director21

Therapeutic area mix

29 of 188 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology16
Cardiovascular / CVRM7
Immunology4
Respiratory1
Neuroscience1

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.

50%similar
Roche Basel, Basel-City, Switzerland Principal
Same function Adjacent seniority Same country
45%similar
Lilly Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority
45%similar
Lilly Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority
45%similar
Merck West Point, Pennsylvania, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority
45%similar
Merck West Point, Pennsylvania, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority
45%similar
Merck South San Francisco, California, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority

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.

50%
Principal Scientist, Respiratory Discovery
Roche · Basel, Basel-City, Switzerland · Principal
Function Therapeutic area Adjacent seniority Country
45%
Senior Scientist, Pharmacokinetics
Merck · West Point, Pennsylvania, United States of America · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
45%
Sr. Dir, Biology-Discovery
Merck · Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
45%
Senior Scientist - Structural Biology and Protein Sciences
Pharmacia & Upjohn Company · San Diego, United States · Senior
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.