What are the responsibilities and job description for the Staff Scientist, Translational Product Development position at Secant Group, LLC?
Who we are:
The Secant Group is an advanced technology biomaterials company headquartered in Telford, Pennsylvania, with manufacturing facilities in Quakertown and Perkasie, Pennsylvania. Secant provides innovative solutions through next-generation materials, structures, textile designs, and process technologies for the medical device, pharmaceutical, aerospace and energy markets.
What we are looking for:
Based in our Telford, PA facility, the Staff Scientist is responsible for driving innovation and development of polymeric biomaterials in the controlled release field. The Staff Scientist will primarily work in a laboratory-based role innovating and formulating polymer drug products for our controlled release platform. The Staff Scientist is responsible for designing and conducting experiments to create next-generation drug-loaded polymer products for the Translational Product Development team. The Staff Scientist will have daily exposure to chemical lab environment, and exposure to manufacturing and environmentally controlled rooms.
What you’ll do:
- Lead the development and characterization of drug-loaded polymer formulations for long-acting products.
- Study, predict, and characterize drug physiochemical properties and drug-polymer interactions.
- Correlates drug properties, such as particle size, morphology, pKa, and logP, to drug-polymer blend rheology, mixing, and release kinetics.
- Designs formulations for the stabilization of small molecule and large molecule drugs using novel polymer excipients.
- Understands and analyzes small molecule and large molecule drug conformation and functional bioactivity in drug-polymer blends, in the presence of various polymer crosslinking schemes.
- Formulates and fabricates drug-loaded implants, ocular micro-implants, injectable microspheres, oral gastroprotective, and in situ forming gels for internal projects and pharma customer projects.
- Designs and formulates drug-loaded dosage forms to meet various Target Product Profiles while meeting Critical Quality Attributes.
- Analyzes formulations using DSC, TGA, NMR, CD, XRD, SEM, FTIR, Raman, and rheometry.
- Applies pharmaceutical knowledge and test hypotheses to gather conclusive datasets.
- Provides technical guidance for process scale-up of polymer formulations from bench to pilot scale.
- Provides technical input on in vivo pharmacokinetic studies.
- Contributes to R&D patent portfolio with innovative ideas, present at conferences, and publish articles.
- Selects, designs, and/or executes experiments, based on interpretation of previous results and understanding of known theory.
- Collaborates with other teams within R&D and across the organization to achieve project goals.
- Makes effective decisions to achieve desired outcomes and meet timelines.
- Follows all applicable Company test methods, work instructions, SOP’s, and guidelines.
- Other duties and projects as assigned.
Who you are:
- PharmD or PhD in chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, material science, chemistry, pharmaceutical sciences, or a related discipline with 5 years, experience required
- Formulation experience in the pharmaceutical industry is required.
- Experience with small molecule and/or large molecule drug formulations is required.
Why join us:
We promote a collaborative, high energy, and fast-paced environment. Using fact-based data, our team members strive to constantly improve our processes and products. We nurture an environment where employees can creatively innovate solutions that drive impactful results both for the business and themselves.
