About this opportunity
IQVIA Discovery Sciences
Location: Flexible Global
Leading the future of technology assisted drug discovery
IQVIA Discovery Sciences is seeking an exceptional Chief Scientist, Modern Drug Discovery to shape and deliver our scientific vision for the next generation of drug discovery services.
This is a high-impact leadership role for a recognised discovery expert who can combine scientific excellence in drug discovery with a passion for AI-enabled innovation, computational science, automation, and translational biology. Working alongside a highly accomplished scientific leadership team, you will help define the talent, capabilities, technologies, and partnerships that will keep IQVIA at the forefront of modern drug discovery.
What You'll Do
Define and execute a forward-looking scientific strategy aligned to evolving client and industry needs.
Drive the adoption of AI-assisted design, predictive modelling, automation, computational sciences, and translational approaches.
Provide scientific leadership across a diverse discovery portfolio, ensuring excellence, rigour, and translational relevance.
Support strategic client engagements, proposals, partnerships, and business growth opportunities.
Act as a senior scientific ambassador with clients, collaborators, and industry stakeholders.
Mentor and inspire multidisciplinary teams across biology, chemistry, protein design, pharmacology, translational, and computational sciences.
About You
PhD or DPhil in a relevant life sciences discipline.
Significant senior leadership experience (10 years+ in leadership roles) within pharmaceutical or, biotechnology industry., Experience of CRO environments is an advantage but not essential.
Proven success advancing discovery programmes from concept through to clinic.
Strong expertise in translational biology and pharmacology with strong track record in at least one major therapeutic modality.
Experience applying AI, computational approaches, and data-driven decision-making within discovery settings.
A collaborative leader who combines scientific credibility with commercial awareness and client focus.
Why IQVIA Discovery Sciences?
Drug discovery is entering a transformative era. This is a unique opportunity to shape how medicines are discovered by combining scientific excellence with emerging technologies and translational innovation in a scaled clinical and data centric setting..
You'll work alongside an outstanding scientific leadership team, collaborate with leading biopharma organisations, and help define the future of discovery services across IQVIA's network.
If you're a visionary scientific leader ready to influence the future of drug discovery, we'd love to hear from you.
IQVIA is a leading global provider of clinical research services, commercial insights and healthcare intelligence to the life sciences and healthcare industries. We create intelligent connections to accelerate the development and commercialization of innovative medical treatments to help improve patient outcomes and population health worldwide. Learn more at https://jobs.iqvia.com
IQVIA is committed to integrity in our hiring process and maintains a zero tolerance policy for candidate fraud. All information and credentials submitted in your application must be truthful and complete. Any false statements, misrepresentations, or material omissions during the recruitment process will result in immediate disqualification of your application, or termination of employment if discovered later, in accordance with applicable law. We appreciate your honesty and professionalism.
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Medical Affairs role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 1353 comparable Medical Affairs roles across 167 biopharma companies.
Salary context
354 of 1353 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.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 1353 comparable roles
+ 56 more countries
Seniority mix
831 of 1353 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
467 of 1353 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
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.
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.
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.