Merck KGaA Posted September 5, 2026

Global Safety Lead

Billerica, Massachusetts, United States FULL_TIME
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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

Work Your Magic with us!  Start your next chapter and join EMD Serono.

Ready to explore, break barriers, and discover more? We know you’ve got big plans – so do we! Our colleagues across the globe love innovating with science and technology to enrich people’s lives with our solutions in Healthcare, Life Science, and Electronics. Together, we dream big and are passionate about caring for our rich mix of people, customers, patients, and planet. That's why we are always looking for curious minds that see themselves imagining the unimaginable with us.

United As One for Patients, our purpose in Healthcare is to help create, improve and prolong lives. We develop medicines, intelligent devices and innovative technologies in therapeutic areas such as Oncology, Neurology and Fertility. Our teams work together across 6 continents with passion and relentless curiosity in order to help patients at every stage of life. Joining our Healthcare team is becoming part of a diverse, inclusive and flexible working culture, presenting great opportunities for personal development and career advancement across the globe.

Your Role

As a GPS Global Safety Lead, you will serve as a recognized scientific authority on medical safety, shaping and driving integrated safety strategies for assigned development programs and marketed products across their full lifecycle. Operating with a high degree of autonomy within a global matrix environment, you will lead benefit-risk evaluation, pharmacovigilance oversight, and safety signal management, ensuring that emerging safety profiles are rigorously monitored, clearly communicated, and strategically managed in alignment with regulatory requirements and internal governance standards.

You will set the medical safety strategic direction for assigned products, providing clear and visible scientific leadership across Research and Development cross-functions. This includes overseeing proactive safety surveillance, signal detection and evaluation, periodic safety reporting, and risk management activities throughout the product lifecycle. You will ensure that safety signals are identified promptly and escalated appropriately within the organization, and that high-quality medical safety contributions are delivered to the Global Safety Committee and other governance bodies. In this role, you will represent the Global Patient Safety function on cross-functional program teams, including Program Steering Teams where delegated, and will provide strategic safety input into regulatory submission documents such as the Integrated Summary of Safety, Clinical Summary of Safety, and Clinical Overview. You will engage directly with regulatory authorities as a subject-matter expert, lead or co-chair relevant safety committees, and collaborate with external advisors, opinion leaders, and partner company colleagues. You will also provide safety expertise for due diligence activities, support audit and inspection readiness, and contribute to the coaching and development of colleagues within the therapy area team.

Location: Billerica, MA (Hyrbid, 3x/week onsite)

Who You Are

Minimum Qualifications:

Medical degree (MD or equivalent), or pharmacy degree, with a minimum of 5 years of broad industry experience in drug development, pharmacovigilance, or related discipline

Demonstrated expertise in pharmacovigilance regulations and guidelines, including their practical application across the product lifecycle

Proven experience authoring complex benefit-risk reports and safety submission documents, including regulatory dossier components

Experience engaging with regulatory authorities in scientific discussions related to safety strategy during clinical development or submission processes

Hands-on experience managing safety issues related to known target organ toxicities and a solid medical understanding of at least one relevant therapeutic area

Expert knowledge of aggregate data analytics and familiarity with related disciplines such as epidemiology, predictive modelling, health outcomes research, and biostatistics

Deep experience within the assigned therapeutic area: oncology

 

Preferred Qualifications

Prior experience as a physician in a relevant therapeutic area, providing direct clinical context to safety decision-making

Experience with NDA, BLA, or equivalent regulatory submissions, or prior work at a regulatory agency reviewing submission files

Demonstrated ability to chair or actively lead high-profile cross-functional meetings and governance boards

Track record of operating effectively in a global matrix environment, managing multiple stakeholders across regions and functions

Strong scientific leadership skills with the ability to influence strategy, foster accountability, and develop team members

Self-motivated with a commitment to staying current on industry trends and applying emerging scientific knowledge to benefit the organization

Ability to present complex safety topics clearly to diverse audiences

 

Base Pay Range for this position – $207,600 – 311,500

The offer range represents the anticipated low and high end of the base pay compensation for this position. The actual compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, level of experience, education, skills, and other job-related factors. Position may be eligible for sales or performance-based bonuses. Benefits offered by the Company include health insurance, paid time off (PTO), retirement contributions, and other perquisites. For more information click here: https://careers.emdgroup.com/us/en/benefits

What we offer: We are curious minds that come from a broad range of backgrounds, perspectives, and life experiences. We believe that this variety drives excellence and innovation, strengthening our ability to lead in science and technology. We are committed to creating access and opportunities for all to develop and grow at your own pace. Join us in building a culture of inclusion and belonging that impacts millions and empowers everyone to work their magic and champion human progress!

Apply now and become a part of a team that is dedicated to Sparking Discovery and Elevating Humanity!

Job details

Seniority
Not listed
Function
Regulatory Affairs
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Billerica, Massachusetts, United States
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

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

We currently track 418 comparable Regulatory Affairs roles across 97 biopharma companies.

418Comparable roles tracked
412Currently active
97Companies hiring similar roles
44Countries represented

Salary context

117 of 418 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 $207,600/yr – $311,500/yr
Peer group range $115,000 – $380,750 (median $202,000)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 418 comparable roles

United States161
India41
Japan31
Poland23
United Kingdom23
Ireland20

+ 38 more countries

Seniority mix

337 of 418 peers have a known seniority level

Manager131
Director65
Senior44
Associate Director41
Senior Director16
Intern/Fellow/Postdoc15
Executive/VP12
Associate9
Principal4

Therapeutic area mix

37 of 418 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology17
Rare Disease6
Immunology5
Vaccines & Infectious Disease3
Dermatology & Aesthetics2
Neuroscience2
Cardiovascular / CVRM2

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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.

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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.