Preclinical R&D Scientist - Drug Development

About the job

Mercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, our investors include Benchmark , General Catalyst , Peter Thiel , Adam D'Angelo , Larry Summers , and Jack Dorsey .

Position: Preclinical R&D Expert - In house Drug Development

Type: Contract

Compensation: $60-$100/hour

Location: Remote

Commitment: 10 hours/week

Role Responsibilities

• Review technical materials and real-world R&D data in your area of expertise.
• Label, classify, and annotate scientific data and model outputs to improve model performance.
• Provide expert perspective on key scientific and development decisions, including target/modality selection and optimization.
• Help define structure and quality standards for the client's dataset pipeline .
• Participate in expert discussions, interviews, and research engagements.
• Interface directly with the client team to ensure alignment and progress.

Qualifications

• Must Have: Hands on, non administrative preclinical R&D experience at a company developing its own drug assets.
• Experience in core R&D functions: discovery biology, medicinal chemistry, protein/antibody engineering, computational, in vivo/translational, pharmacology/PK PD, toxicology, or CMC/formulation.
• Hands on experience with one or more drug modalities: small molecules, monoclonal antibodies, peptides, ADCs, bispecifics, mRNA, siRNA, ASOs, PROTACs, molecular glues, cell therapies, gene therapies, radioligand therapies, etc.
• 5+ years of relevant industry R&D experience.
• Preferred: Experience taking a program through lead optimization or IND enabling/preclinical development.
• Experience at mid sized, emerging, or resource constrained biotech, ideally outside the top 20 pharmaceutical companies.