The Opportunity
The heart of insitro's strategy is the combination of novel methods in machine learning, biology at scale and small molecule discovery that address important bottlenecks in the drug development pipeline. We are searching for an outstanding physician scientist with expertise in the utilization of human clinical, biomarker and genetic data sets to help guide our neuroscience drug discovery strategy.
Reporting to our Chief Medical Officer, you will put together a vision for aligning our internal and partnered programs with patient clinical outcomes. You will work on a collaborative team and serve as a bridge between the teams developing ML enabled in vitro cellular models, human genetics data, and human biomarker data to inform our neuroscience drug discovery strategy. You will lead the strategy for using clinical data to inform our understanding of patient outcomes and disease progression, and for identifying clinically relevant patient subpopulations. You will be an integral part of the neuroscience team and work with the executive team to develop a mature machine learning enabled neuroscience drug discovery strategy.
This role can be either onsite (3 days per week) in our South San Francisco office or hybrid (~one week per month) in the office. Additional travel will be needed.
You will join as the founding team of a biotech startup that has long-term stability due to significant funding, but yet is very much in formation. A lot can change in this early and exciting phase, providing many opportunities for impact. You will work with a very accomplished team, learn a broad range of skills, and help shape insitro's culture, strategic direction, and outcomes. Join us, and help make a difference to patients!
Primary responsibilities:
- Lead efforts to design and execute ML-enabled clinical trials for internal and/or partnered programs.
- Play an important strategic role in integration of the patient perspective to inform disease modeling and drug discovery efforts, including understanding the standard of care, areas of unmet need, and identifying viable target-patient profiles.
- Partner with colleagues in data science and machine learning (DSML) and in corporate development to identify critical data assets and/or commission the generation of data for biomarker discovery in neuroscience.
- Collaborate with DSML colleagues to define machine learning (ML) models for clinical data to inform our understanding of patient trajectory and patient subpopulations and to identify novel endpoints for clinical trials.
- Longer-term, partner with market planning and commercial development colleagues on market research and target-patient profiles for new programs.
- Contribute as a clinical area expert dedicated to delivering biomarker strategies for neuroscience.
- Prepare IND-enabling data packages according to clinical development objectives.
- Participate in strategic overview of presentations, publications, and internal/ external communications along with accountable project and program leadership.
About You:
- MD or MD/PhD in a technical field (genetics, neuroscience, molecular biology, cellular biology, etc.) or equivalent, with 8+ years of experience.
- Experience working with patients, patient data, patient trajectories/disease progression and clinical trial design.
- Experience with biomarker data sets such as; proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomic and/or imaging clinical data sets.
- Experience working as part of a high-performance team, including goal setting, and contributing to a culture of high-quality methods development and reducing those methods to a practical implementation.
- Strong verbal and written communication skills across all levels both within an organization and with external partners.
Nice to have
- Specialized training in clinical neurology or related field of medicine.
- Experience working with human genetics and analyzing human genetic data sets.
- Experience building partnerships or collaborations with data scientists or computational biologists, engineers and experimental biologists.
- A record of publications in a relevant scientific discipline
Compensation & Benefits at insitro
Our target starting salary for successful US-based applicants for this role is $260,000 - $350,000. To determine starting pay, we consider multiple job-related factors including a candidate's skills, education and experience, market demand, business needs, and internal parity. We may also adjust this range in the future based on market data.
This role is eligible for participation in our Annual Performance Bonus Plan (based on company targets by role level and annual company performance) and our Equity Incentive Plan, subject to the terms of those plans and associated policies.
In addition, insitro also provides our employees:
- 401(k) plan with employer matching for contributions
- Excellent medical, dental, and vision coverage (insitro pays 100% of premiums for employees), as well as mental health and well-being support
- Open, flexible vacation policy
- Paid parental leave
- Quarterly budget for books and online courses for self-development
- Support to attend professional conferences that are meaningful to your career growth and development
- New hire stipend for home office setup
- Monthly cell phone & internet stipend
- Access to free onsite baristas and cafe with daily lunch and breakfast
- Access to free onsite fitness center
- Commuter benefits
insitro is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.
We believe diversity, equity, and inclusion need to be at the foundation of our culture. We work hard to bring together diverse teams–grounded in a wide range of expertise and life experiences–and work even harder to ensure those teams thrive in inclusive, growth-oriented environments supported by equitable company and team practices. All candidates can expect equitable treatment, respect, and fairness throughout the interview process.
