Kite Pharma, Inc. Posted September 11, 2026

Director, Clinical Development (MD)

Bay Area Remote, United States Full time
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Kite Pharma, Inc. 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

We’re here for one reason and one reason only – to cure cancer. Every moment is dedicated to developing treatments and every action moves us one step closer to our goal. We’ve made incredible scientific breakthroughs and our pioneering personalized CAR T-cell therapies have changed the paradigm. But we're not finished yet.

Join Kite, as we make even bigger advances in cancer therapies, and help shape where our business and medical science goes next.

We believe every employee deserves a great leader. People Leaders are the cornerstone to the employee experience at Gilead and Kite. As a people leader now or in the future, you are the key driver in evolving our culture and creating an environment where every employee feels included, developed and empowered to fulfil their aspirations. Join Kite and help create more tomorrows.

Job Description

The Medical Director provides clinical oversight and medical monitoring for one or more clinical trials and contributes to the design and execution of clinical studies in a high-quality, time- and cost-effective manner consistent with departmental goals, regulatory requirements, and resource constraints. This role has meaningful study-level ownership with the opportunity for enterprise-level strategic and organizational leadership visibility.

Job Responsibilities

·       Provide clinical oversight and medical monitoring for one or more clinical trials in neurology and/or autoimmune disease.

·       Contribute to the design and implementation of clinical studies, including early-phase and proof-of-concept trials, in collaboration with senior clinical leaders and cross-functional partners.

·       Draft and/or review protocols, protocol amendments, investigator brochures, clinical study reports, informed consent forms, safety narratives, and other clinical trial documents.

·       Participate in investigator meetings, site engagement activities, and selected site initiation activities with clinical trial investigators.

·       Support execution of clinical development plans by identifying study risks, proposing mitigations, and helping track milestones, deliverables, and budget-conscious study decisions.

·       Interpret findings from research, translational, and nonclinical studies and help translate them into clinical development opportunities.

·       Interact with investigators, key opinion leaders, and other external experts to support protocol development, study conduct, and data interpretation.

·       Partner with internal Regulatory Affairs, Safety, Clinical Operations, Biometrics, Translational Sciences, Medical Writing, and other functions to support high-quality study execution and regulatory compliance.

·       Provide clinical input to regulatory submissions and responses to health authority questions in the context of INDs, clinical trial applications, and later-stage planning.

·       Contribute clinical guidance in interactions with external stakeholders, including advisory boards and patient advocacy organizations, and with internal stakeholders across Research, Translational Sciences, Clinical Operations, Safety, Regulatory, Medical Affairs, and Commercial as appropriate.

·       May present scientific or clinical data at investigator meetings and scientific congresses and may contribute to abstracts, presentations, and publications.

·       May support due diligence or clinical evaluation of external opportunities as needed.

Basic Qualifications

·       MD or DO required.

·       Approximately 2 to 5 years of clinical, scientific, and/or drug development experience in biopharma, academia, healthcare, or related settings.

·       Working knowledge of clinical trial design, protocol development, safety review, and Good Clinical Practice.

·       Ability to function effectively in a matrixed, cross-functional team environment.

Preferred Qualifications

·       Board certified or board eligible in Neurology.

·       Training and clinical expertise in neurology, neuroimmunology, or autoimmune neurologic disease.

·       Drug development experience in neurology, autoimmune disease, cell therapy, immunology, or other advanced therapeutics, either within industry or as a clinical investigator / physician-scientist.

·       Experience supporting Phase 1, Phase 1b/2, or proof-of-concept studies; prior first-in-human exposure is desirable but not required.

·       Demonstrated ability to contribute to study design, study conduct, and emerging data interpretation.

·       Strong clinical judgment, scientific rigor, and problem-solving skills.

·       Effective written and verbal communication skills and the ability to work with appropriate independence while escalating issues thoughtfully.

·       Ability to build productive working relationships with internal colleagues, investigators, and key thought leaders.

·       Comfort operating in a fast-paced and evolving development environment.

·       May travel up to 25%

TBD

The salary range for this position is:

Bay Area: $261,375.00 - $338,250.00.

Other US Locations: $237,575.00 - $307,450.00.

Kite considers a variety of factors when determining base compensation, including experience, qualifications, and geographic location. These considerations mean actual compensation will vary. This position may also be eligible for a discretionary annual bonus, discretionary stock-based long-term incentives (eligibility may vary based on role), paid time off, and a benefits package. Benefits include company-sponsored medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans*.

For additional benefits information, visit:

https://www.gilead.com/careers/compensation-benefits-and-wellbeing

* Eligible employees may participate in benefit plans, subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable plans.

Kite is a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the development of innovative cancer immunotherapies with a goal of providing rapid, long-term durable response and eliminating the burden of chronic care. The company is focused on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and T cell receptor (TCR) engineered cell therapies designed to empower the immune system's ability to recognize and kill tumors. Kite is based in Santa Monica, CA. For more information on Kite, please visit www.kitepharma.com . Sign up to follow @KitePharma on Twitter at www.twitter.com/kitepharma .

For jobs in the United States:

Kite Pharma is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment, and is dedicated to fostering an inclusive work environment comprised of diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. Employment decisions regarding recruitment and selection will be made without discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex , age, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, genetic information or characteristic, gender identity and expression, veteran status, or other non-job related characteristics or other prohibited grounds specified in applicable federal, state and local laws. In order to ensure reasonable accommodation for individuals protected by Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Act of 1974, and Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, applicants who require accommodation in the job application process may contact  ApplicantAccommodations@gilead.com for assistance.

For more information about equal employment opportunity protections, please view the  'Know Your Rights' poster.

NOTICE: EMPLOYEE POLYGRAPH PROTECTION ACT

YOUR RIGHTS UNDER THE FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE ACT

Kite Pharma will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, (c) consistent with the  legal duty to furnish information; or (d) otherwise protected by law.

Our environment respects individual differences and recognizes each employee as an integral member of our company. Our workforce reflects these values and celebrates the individuals who make up our growing team.

Kite Pharma provides a work environment free of harassment and prohibited conduct. We promote and support individual differences and diversity of thoughts and opinion.

For Current Kite Pharma Employees and Contractors:

Please apply via the Internal Career Opportunities portal in Workday.

Job details

Seniority
Director
Function
Clinical Development
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Bay Area Remote, United States
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 253 comparable Director Clinical Development roles across 49 biopharma companies.

253Comparable roles tracked
228Currently active
49Companies hiring similar roles
17Countries represented

Salary context

118 of 253 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.

This roleSubject $261,375/yr – $338,250/yr
Lowest disclosed · Sr. Principal Associate - QA Clinical Trial Packaging Engineer · Lilly $65,250/yr – $169,400/yr
Peer group range $117,325 – $392,100 (median $264,000)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 253 comparable roles

United States191
United Kingdom18
India11
Spain8
Switzerland7
Poland2

+ 11 more countries

Seniority mix

253 of 253 peers have a known seniority level

Director190
Senior Director43
Principal20

Therapeutic area mix

75 of 253 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology39
Immunology11
Neuroscience10
Cardiovascular / CVRM6
Ophthalmology4
Respiratory3
Rare Disease2

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.

60%similar
AstraZeneca Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States of America Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
AstraZeneca Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States of America Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
AstraZeneca Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
AstraZeneca Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
AstraZeneca Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Lilly Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America Director
Same function Same seniority Same country

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.

60%
Global Development Medical Director, Late Respiratory and Immunology Clinical Development
AstraZeneca · Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States of America · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Global Development Medical Director
AstraZeneca · Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Director, Clinical Pharmacology
AbbVie · North Chicago, IL · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Director, Clinical Pharmacology
AbbVie · South San Francisco, CA · Director
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.