Merck KGaA Posted August 15, 2026

China Clinical Research Scientist

Beijing, Beijing, China FULL_TIME
Clinical Development

Merck KGaA is the source of truth for this posting and owns the application process. We surface normalized context and market comparison you won't find on the original listing.

About this opportunity

Your role:

As a subject matter expert, the China Clinical Research Scientist (CRS) partners with the Clinical Lead to provide scientific, clinical, strategic, and operational input to an early or late-stage clinical development program. The CRS contributes to data interpretation, study designs, regulatory and study documents, and publication efforts as well as providing scientific input into pipeline programs. Medical Monitoring and Medical Data Review activities are conducted in close collaboration with the  Clinical Lead, including oversight of any Medical Monitoring activities performed by contracted vendors. The China CRS mainly focus on R&D China programs and assigned global programs per need.

The CRS interacts with a multi-disciplinary, global/local team ensuring that scientific, clinical and other topics are appropriately considered with respect to highly complex data findings and escalated to clinical Lead.

Within the frame of the clinical development of new medicines, the CRS is responsible for:

Managing assigned activities within clinical study in support of the clinical Lead;

Providing clinical/scientific input and gathering necessary information from other areas to clinical development plans;

Involved in Medical Monitoring and Medical Data Review in close collaboration with the Clinical Lead;

Assisting closely with Contract Research Organizations and other vendors on medical monitoring activities, supporting to the operational excellence of project execution in partnership with Global Development Operations;

Working on the design of clinical trial concepts, study protocols, assessment schedules, patient information material as well as clinical study reports in support of the Clinical Lead;

Preparing the relevant sections of the common technical document dossier while supporting clinical trial-related submission activities and marketing authorization submissions;

Assisting in the design and organization of the content for relevant Advisory Board Meetings or KTL consultation;

Drafting sections for clinical trial protocols, including most recent literature citations.

Who you are:

The CRS is an individual contributor with high analytical skills, strategic thinking, and a growth mindset.

With direct oversight and guidance, able to work on assigned tasks or projects with scientific rigor and utilizing up-to-date information technology

Expert knowledge of scientific principles and concepts

Knowledge of regulatory requirements, including ICH-GCP strongly preferred

Aptitude to interpret and to integrate complex data, including, clinical safety and efficacy data, pharmacokinetics, biomarker and next generation sequencing data

Good medical or clinical knowledge and experience in clinical development/operations with the capacity to monitor laboratory data and other clinical trial data

Capability to perform literature searches and to utilize library services, digest the information, and synthesize the key take-away points

Good communication and presentation skills

Normally receives general instruction on routine work and more detailed instruction on new assignments

Educational and/or work experience in the respective therapeutic area is desirable

Proficient level of organizational and project management skills

Able to oversee Medical Data Reviewers with the support of Medical Lead. Adeptness to work in a matrix environment of cultural diversity and in a global setting.

Master degree of clinical medicine is preferred. M.D. will be an advantage.

Fluent English is a must.

Experience in product and clinical development (minimum of 1 year, with at least 3 years in a comparable setting in the pharmaceutical industry or biopharma/healthcare setting) preferred.

Job details

Seniority
Not listed
Function
Clinical Development
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Beijing, Beijing, China
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Clinical Development role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 753 comparable Clinical Development roles across 77 biopharma companies.

753Comparable roles tracked
722Currently active
77Companies hiring similar roles
37Countries represented

Salary context

233 of 753 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function. This posting doesn't list a seniority level, so peers aren't narrowed by seniority either -- the range below may span more levels than usual.

This roleSubject Not listed on this posting
Lowest disclosed · Research Technologist - Clinical Pathology · AbbVie $58,656/yr – $110,500/yr
Highest disclosed · Global Clinical Head- Executive Director · AstraZeneca $331,874/yr – $497,810/yr
Peer group range $84,578 – $414,842 (median $232,750)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 753 comparable roles

United States346
India122
United Kingdom38
China35
Poland26
Spain22

+ 31 more countries

Seniority mix

610 of 753 peers have a known seniority level

Manager153
Director146
Senior96
Associate Director79
Associate52
Executive/VP33
Senior Director27
Principal23
Intern/Fellow/Postdoc1

Therapeutic area mix

161 of 753 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology64
Immunology32
Neuroscience18
Cardiovascular / CVRM15
Respiratory13
Ophthalmology6
Dermatology & Aesthetics5
Vaccines & Infectious Disease4
Rare Disease3
Gastroenterology1

Similar opportunities

The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.

40%similar
Lilly Shanghai, Shanghai, China Principal
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Notify me about similar jobs

Get an email when we spot other openings like this one – same job function, comparable seniority, roles you'd actually want to see.

How we calculate "similar"

No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.

Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.

40%
Senior Advisor, Clinical Research Physician
Lilly · Shanghai, Shanghai, China · Principal
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
40%
Clinical Pharmacologist
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Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
40%
Clinical Development Trial Lead
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Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
40%
CRA I
AbbVie · Shenyang, Liaoning · Seniority not listed
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
Unmatched or unknown dimensions score exactly the same: 0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.