Principal Scientist, Commercial and Late-Stage Purification Process Development

Neurodegenerative diseases are one of the largest medical challenges of our time. Denali Therapeutics is a biotechnology company dedicated to developing breakthrough therapies for neurodegenerative diseases through our deep commitment to degeneration biology and principles of translational medicine. Denali is founded on the collaboration of leading scientists, industry experts, and investors who share the vision that scientific discovery energetically applied to translational medicine is the key to delivering effective therapies to patients.

Key Accountabilities/Core Job Responsibilities:

• Serve as downstream purification technical lead for commercial manufacturing including continued process verification, investigations, deviation support, and cross-site alignment.

• Support lifecycle management activities for commercial products, including process improvements, tech transfer validation activities, local and cross-site change management, regulatory filing updates (CBE, PAS, Ex-US expansion), and responses to health authority questions.  

• Drive technical continuity and alignment across CDMO and internal manufacturing sites by ensuring process understanding, lessons learned and technical decisions are consistently captured and applied.

• Design, oversee, and interpret small-scale process development studies that inform large-scale manufacturing decisions, support root-cause investigations, and enable lifecycle improvements.

• Build and maintain technical risk assessments (e.g., FMEA) and process history files to support robust commercial manufacturing and future late-stage programs.

• Support the incoming late-stage process development pipeline and commercial programs by applying best practices, platform knowledge, and prior manufacturing experience while contributing to standardization of lifecycle management practices.

Qualifications/Skills:

• Typically requires a PhD in Biology, Biochemistry, Chemical Engineering, or a related scientific discipline, plus 10+ years of related work experience.

• Strong experience with commercial process support and technology transfers, downstream purification process characterization, and process validation.

• Experience managing post-approval changes as a technical SME in collaboration with site, regulatory, supply chain and quality.

• Experience reviewing batch records, supporting deviation investigations, and assessing process performance during manufacturing campaigns.

• Proven track record of representing bioprocess functions in cross-functional teams and working effectively with CDMOs.

• Broad experience in process characterization, design of experiments, and analytics.

• Experience developing downstream purification processes to support early- or late-stage clinical production.

• Expertise in AKTA protein purification systems, antibody characterization methods, and other biophysical techniques.

• Excellent critical thinking, scientific problem-solving, and communication skills

• Familiarity with BLA authoring and post-approval regulatory support is preferred.

This compensation and benefits information is based on Denali’s good faith estimate as of the date of publication and may be modified in the future.
 

Denali is committed to its core company value of unity by creating a diverse and inclusive environment. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, basis of disability, or any other federal, state, or local protected class.