Senior or Principal Data Scientist - Research Analytics

Make your mark for patients

Data Science and Analytics (DSA) is a global team focusing on creating impact and value for patients using data and translational research and is a key contributor to the organization's Digital Business Transformation. Within DSA, the Research Analytics group is driven by answering scientific questions during drug candidate discovery. We focus on applying data science and data analytics approaches to bring insights to each experiment, and our contributions span across multiple modalities and research platforms, including small molecules, macrocyclic peptides, targeted protein degradation, biologics, and gene therapy.

As a Senior/Principal Data Scientist within the Research Analytics team you will help provide analytics solutions to inform compound and Ab discovery and prioritization for our early drug discovery platforms. Primary responsibilities will include mining, analyzing, machine learning on, and visualizing diverse data to help identify initial hits or tool compounds and establish early structure-activity relationships for these hits. The relevant datasets include imaging, gene expression, and data from high throughput screens, as well as sequencing output from in vitro selection methods (e.g. mRNA display data for peptides). Capturing findings to enable meta-analysis and the interpretation and communication of results in interdisciplinary project teams are integral parts of the role. You will work closely with our scientists across departments and research sites, and actively collaborate with external academic and industrial partners.

• Enhance data processing pipeline to support experimental set-up and analyses on assays mentioned above.
• Deliver data-driven insights on molecules using analytics and machine learning on high-dimensional datasets conducted with complex biological assays (e.g. next-generation sequencing, mRNA display, affinity selection mass spectrometry)
• Active collaboration and clear communication with relevant stakeholders in function areas such as Discovery Biology, Medicinal Chemistry, Computational Chemistry, Protein Sciences and fellow data science teams & IT.

• PhD in biological, chemical, or data science with strong skills & experience in informatics, statistics, or computer science and demonstrated delivery in the life sciences space. Prior experience (4+ yrs) in pharma or biotechnology industry is a bonus.

• Strong biological and/or chemical domain knowledge
• Understanding of data types, file formats, and common metadata used in biology, including high-dimensional experiments such as imaging, or high-throughput experiments such as peptide/biologics display and mass spectrometry.
• Experience with machine learning on large / high dimensional datasets including data manipulation, wrangling, and analytics.
• Experience with machine learning on chemical, sequence, and/or biological features.
• Demonstrated ability to work as part of interdisciplinary teams
• Strong programming skills in relevant language(s) (R / Python)
• Excellent written and oral communication skills demonstrated by publications and conference presentations
• Experience with programmatic querying of relational or graph databases is desirable (SQL, neo4j, etc.)

Are you ready to 'go beyond' to create value and make your mark for patients? If this sounds like you, then we would love to hear from you!

About us
UCB is a global biopharmaceutical company, focusing on neurology and immunology. We are over 9.000 people in all four corners of the globe, inspired by patients and driven by science.

Why work with us?
At UCB, we don't just complete tasks, we create value. We aren't afraid to push forward, collaborate, and innovate to make our mark for patients. We have a caring, supportive culture where everyone feels included, respected, and has equal opportunities to do their best work. We 'go beyond' to create value for our patients, and always with a human focus, whether that's on our patients, our employees, or our planet. Working for us, you will discover a place where you can grow, and have the freedom to carve your own career path to achieve your full potential.

At UCB, we've embraced a hybrid-first approach to work, bringing teams together in local hubs to foster collaborative curiosity. Unless explicitly stated in the description or precluded by the nature of the position, roles are hybrid with 40% of your time spent in the office.

UCB is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions will be made without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. UCB invites you to voluntarily self-identify during the application process. Provision of self-identification information is entirely voluntary and a decision to provide or not provide such information will not have any effect on your application for employment, your employment with UCB, or otherwise subject you to any adverse treatment. Any information you provide will be considered confidential and will be kept separate from your application and/or personnel file and will only be used in accordance with applicable laws, orders, and regulations.

Should you require any adjustments to our process to assist you in demonstrating your strengths and capabilities contact us on US-Reasonable_Accommodation@ucb.com for application to US based roles. Please note should your enquiry not relate to adjustments; we will not be able to support you through this channel.