Senior Safety Director

Roche•Mississauga, ON

About The Position

At Roche, we advance science so that we all have more time with the people we love. Our Clinical Safety organisation is dedicated to delivering meaningful improvements to patients through medically-differentiated therapies. In this role, you will provide essential safety science and pharmacovigilance support to molecules across the Roche portfolio, ensuring the highest standards of participant safety and data reliability. As a Senior Safety Director at Roche, you'll be a recognized expert and strategic leader in drug safety, driving safety strategy for our most complex molecules while building organizational capability across the Clinical Safety organization. You'll provide expert mentorship to colleagues, lead high-stakes regulatory submissions, and represent Roche's safety expertise to regulatory authorities, governance committees, and senior leadership. This role combines deep technical expertise with strategic influence. This is the perfect opportunity for a safety leader ready to shape the future of drug development and drive organizational excellence.

Requirements

Qualified healthcare professional or Life Sciences graduate
A minimum 10+ years of drug development experience in pharmaceutical or related industry, including at least 5 years in drug safety
Expert-level understanding of scientific aspects of safety, pharmacovigilance, and clinical/patient risk management with demonstrable knowledge of GVP, GCP, and CTR requirements
10+ years of clinical drug development experience in the biopharmaceutical industry or a related sector (e.g. academia; CRO; etc); preferably including at least 5 years of experience in a clinical drug safety-related role.
Demonstrate expert understanding of the scientific aspects of safety, PV and clinical/patient risk management (e.g. via demonstrable knowledge of the application of GVP, GCP & CTR requirements) is essential.
Demonstrated ability to lead and influence, with and without authority, in a global matrix environment.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills and proven success in creating and sustaining strong relationships with internal and external business partners across an organization to create positive partnerships.
Evidence of proactive, structured thinking with the ability to rapidly respond to an evolving and complex environment.
Apply complex data analysis / statistical methods to evaluate, interpret and present scientific data with clarity
Strong presentation skills, effective at summarizing and presenting the key considerations and decision points and ability to effectively train others on departmental practices and processes

Nice To Haves

A relevant postgraduate qualification (e.g. PHD/MSc in a Life sciences discipline; PharmD or other post-graduate health professional qualifications) would be advantageous.
Experience across all lifecycle stages
NDA/BLA filing experience strongly preferred

Responsibilities

Takes the lead in defining, owning, progressing, and guiding the defined safety strategy for their program(s)
Accountable for establishing and maintaining the company position on the safety profile and shaping the proactive patient risk communication and risk management strategy.
Must provide an objective and neutral position as a safety professional, even when facing conflicting business priorities or viewpoints.
Is the expert content reviewer for safety aspects and must be consulted for safety profile decision-making across the product lifecycle (e.g., updates to the Investigator’s brochure (IB)/safety label, Integrated Safety Management Plan/Risk Management Plan (RMP)).
Leads the development of the safety strategy by providing input into clinical development programs, Target Product Profiles (TPPs), Integrated Evidence Plans (IEPs), health technology assessment (HTA) dossier, and launch strategies.
Provides critical safety input to inform decision-making on clinical development plans and individual study designs.
Also provides requisite oversight and expert review for safety components of regulatory authority submissions (e.g., IND, NDA, MAA).
Influences key stakeholders (e.g., triad or cross-functional development teams, regulatory leader, medical affairs).
Works closely with PCS (Portfolio Clinical Safety) to meet Clinical Safety deliverables and provide medical and scientific interpretation of emerging clinical and nonclinical safety data.