Associate Scientist II/Scientist I, Cell Culture Development - AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas – immunology, oncology, neuroscience, and eye care – and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. 

AbbVie Bay Area (ABA) in South San Francisco is focused on the discovery and development of novel oncology, immunology, and infectious disease therapeutics. About 1,000 AbbVie scientists, clinicians, and product developers with strong entrepreneurial roots work at ABA. They combine their expertise in oncology, immunology, stem cells, and cell-signaling with their knowledge of bispecific antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), and covalent-inhibitor technologies to discover and develop novel biotherapeutics.

We are seeking an Associate Scientist II or Scientist I to join a talented and collaborative team to develop cell culture processes for pre-clinical and clinical manufacture. In this position, the candidate will perform media preparation, cell culture process development, scale-up, and technology transfer activities in a well-supported and dynamic environment to help advance novel therapeutics into pre-clinical and clinical studies.  

Responsibilities:

• Develop cell culture processes from vial thaw to primary recovery for INDa-enabling toxicology studies and Phase I GMP manufacture
• Use scientific and engineering principles to scale up cell culture processes from ambr250 and/or 2L benchtop scale up to the 4000L scale
• Use scientific and engineering principles to scale up primary recovery processes
• Collaborate closely with project leads from the Cell Line Development and Purification Development groups to meet dynamic project timelines
• Support the tech transfer of master cell banking, cell culture, and primary recovery processes for Phase I GMP manufacture
• Author and review technical development reports, GMP campaign summary reports and relevant CMC sections for regulatory submissions
• Lead and/or support the continuous improvement of business processes in the Cell Culture group
• Develop innovative technologies and enhance our cell culture process understanding
• Present and/or publish scientific findings at internal forums, external conferences, and/or peer-reviewed journals

Position will be hired based on level of experience: 

Associate Scientist II: Bachelor’s Degree, or equivalent education, with typically 3 or more years’ experience or Master’s Degree or equivalent education (no additional experience)

Scientist I: Bachelor of Science with at least 5 years of industrial CHO cell culture experience or Master of Science with at least 2 years of industrial CHO cell culture experience

• Proficient in aseptic technique in a biosafety cabinet
• Proficient in vial thaw, banking cell lines, and seed train scale up
• Experienced in using cell counters, blood gas analyzers, metabolite analyzers and osmometers
• Has experience in executing cell culture processes in the Ambr® 250 and 2L bioreactors
• Basic understanding of primary harvest processes   
• Has first-principles understanding of CHO metabolism, cellular transport, gas transport, and enzyme kinetics
• With some assistance, be able to design, execute, and interpret laboratory experiments to answer specific scientific questions
• Has excellent attention to detail and the ability to keep detailed written records in an electronic lab notebook or batch record
• Proficient with Microsoft Office software (MS Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams)
• Has strong verbal communications skills and writing skills to clearly articulate messages and scientific data to a variety of technical and non-technical audiences
• Forward-thinking and able to contribute to scientific/technical discussions
• Is a team player: willing to assist lab mates as needed and to work over the weekend for 1-2 hours, once every 6 weeks

Preferred:

• Hands on experience with media preparation
• Experience with transient transfection in CHO/HEK cells
• Experience with the setup and operations of pilot scale (50L to 500L) single use bioreactors, continuous disk stack centrifuge, and depth filtration
• Experience with creating and analyzing Design of Experiments
• Experienced in programming (VBA, Python, Java, etc)

Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state or local law: ​

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• The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Company believes in good faith it will pay for this role at the time of this posting based on the job grade for this position. Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location, and we may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future.​

• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick), medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees.​

• This job is eligible to participate in our short-term incentive programs. ​

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Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, incentive, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole and absolute discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent with applicable law. 

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives, serving our community and embracing diversity and inclusion.  It is AbbVie’s policy to employ qualified persons of the greatest ability without discrimination against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy), physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, status as a protected veteran, or any other legally protected group status.

US & Puerto Rico only - to learn more, visit https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/equal-employment-opportunity-employer.html 

US & Puerto Rico applicants seeking a reasonable accommodation, click here to learn more:

https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/reasonable-accommodations.html