Principal Scientist

Fujifilm•Thousand Oaks, CA

1d•$150,000 - $210,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Principal Scientist, Manufacturing Sciences and Technology (MSAT) will report directly to the Senior Director, Manufacturing Science and Technology at the FUJIFILM Biotechnologies, California site. The job holder will be responsible for establishing laboratory capabilities, designing, and performing laboratory studies to support process development activities, assessing novel processes and technologies, etc. They will ensure decisions are made timely and will facilitate active cross-functional technical communication and information flow between internal team members and clients. The Principal Scientist, Process Development is responsible for process development activities associated with client processes and cell therapy production at Fujifilm Biotechnologies, California. This position provides leadership within a high performing team that will provide process development assessments for potential clients, is responsible for providing strong scientific leadership and hands-on support for all aspects of technology transfer, process development and scale-up, lab scale process monitoring, and process troubleshooting, and supporting regulatory submissions as needed. This position has a strong cross-functional partnership with the Cell Therapy Business leaders, Process Engineering, Technology Transfer/New Product Introduction to ensure successful development and transfer, into the site, of all client cell therapy manufacturing processes. At FUJIFILM Biotechnologies California, we’re driving the future of medicine with the expertise to produce life-changing cell therapies like T-cell and CAR T immunotherapies. Working with pioneering biotech partners, our teams manufacture innovative treatments that improve lives. Join us at our advanced Thousand Oaks facility, where you’ll make a tangible impact on groundbreaking therapies. We offer a collaborative, flexible workplace and a vibrant culture driven by passion and energy—what we call Genki. If you’re ready to reimagine the future of healthcare, let’s create something extraordinary together. Our campus is in Thousand Oaks, California, an exceptional place to live with great schools, natural beauty, outdoor activities, and proximity to Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Fujifilm is globally headquartered in Tokyo with over 70,000 employees across four key business segments of healthcare, electronics, business innovation, and imaging. We are guided and united by our Group Purpose of “giving our world more smiles.”

Requirements

Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) with 12+ years of experience or an equivalent combination of education; OR Master of Science (M.Sc.) with 10+ years of experience; OR PhD in Science with 8+ years of experience
Ability to organize, structure and staff the organization in a changing environment.
Strong leadership presence with ability to garner respect through sound technical analysis, business judgment and clear decision-making.
Excellent interpersonal skills with ability to lead, interact with, influence, resolve conflict and drive consensus among individuals from a variety of cultures, and disciplines.
Excellent management skills: training, performance management, planning, prioritization, objective setting, meeting management and plan execution.
Demonstrated experience supporting technology transfers, cGMP manufacturing operations and CMC regulatory submissions and inspections required.
Expert knowledge of cell and gene therapy, cell biology, cell culture, cell processing and cell cryopreservation principles.
Breadth of knowledge across cell culture technologies, cell processing technologies, cell characterization methods, manufacturing under cGMP, and regulatory requirements.
Demonstrated in-depth skills in designing, executing, and interpreting experiments and experimental data.
Strong communication skills (e.g., clear, and concise), team player, and proven negotiation skills.
Good decision-making with strong judgment through collaboration and consideration of others point-of-view.
Self-motivated, flexible, and creative leader, able to prioritize, multi-task, and work in a fast-paced & demanding environment.
Flexibility to travel as required to accommodate business needs
Expert problem-solving skills.
Effective interpersonal skills as both a team leader and a team player.
Role model for FUJIFILM Biotechnologies values of trust, delighting our customers, Gemba, and Genki.

Responsibilities

Provide strong scientific leadership and hands-on support for all aspects of technology transfer, process development and scale-up, lab scale process monitoring, and process troubleshooting, and supporting regulatory submissions as needed.
Optimize cell culture and processing methodologies, cell selection and separation technologies, cell characterization methods, and process equipment selection meeting cGMP, Quality Systems, and regulatory requirements.
Identify and qualify critical or custom reagents, disposable required for development activities.
Design and execute process development studies to develop a thorough understanding of operating and performance parameters (Design space).
Implement science-based approaches and cGMP requirements in the selection of critical raw materials and components.
Provides Process Sciences assessments on suitability of technologies, scalability, and manufacturability during process development activities and partners with Process Engineering and clients for defining the critical process parameters of new processes.
Provides significant technical depth to support troubleshooting efforts during development activities.
Assess suitability of technologies, equipment, and methodologies to provide a competitive advantage for our service offering and efficiency/effectiveness of client programs.
Provide leadership in process development assessments for potential clients.
Partners with cross-functional teams such as the Cell Therapy Business leaders, Process Engineering, Technology Transfer/New Product Introduction to ensure successful development and transfer, into the site, of all client cell therapy manufacturing processes.
Develop study templates that can serve as platforms for multiple cell types or processing modules, as applicable
Author, review and approve process development reports, process qualification protocols/reports, risk assessments, standardization unit operations modules, and technical reports, laboratory procedures.
Train Process Development and/or Process Engineering and Manufacturing staff members.
Drives timely decisions and facilitates active cross-functional technical communication and information flow between team members.
Supports technology transfer related activities for NPI and implementation of process changes into manufacturing from a technical perspective.
Partners with Process Engineering and NPI teams to identify and drive process optimization initiatives and addresses opportunities for efficiency and capacity improvements in all areas of internal and external manufacturing.
Authors IND, NDA, and other technical documents for regulatory agency submission in support of manufacturing process development activities and serves as process subject matter expert in client and health authority interactions.
Use engineering approaches to develop solutions to manufacturing process deficiencies
Performs multiplexed cell-based assays (killing assays, mixed lymphocyte reactions, proliferation assays, etc.) for process assessment and product characterization.
Provide leadership to more junior team members.
Document laboratory procedures and experiments with great attention to detail in laboratory notebooks
Assist in the development of standard operating procedures, analytical test methods, and analytical sampling plans
Author, review, and approve laboratory procedures.
Support instrument qualifications