GlaxoSmithKline Inc. Posted August 24, 2026

Principal Medical Writer

Mississauga Milverton Drive, Canada Full time
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GlaxoSmithKline 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

At GSK, we have bold ambitions for patients, aiming to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade. Our R&D focuses on discovering and delivering vaccines and medicines, combining our understanding of the immune system with cutting-edge technology to transform people’s lives. GSK fosters a culture ambitious for patients, accountable for impact, and committed to doing the right thing, making sure that we focus our efforts on accelerating significant assets that meet patients’ needs and have the highest probability of success. We’re uniting science, technology, and talent to get ahead of disease together.

Find out more:

Our approach to R&D

Position Summary

The Principal Medical Writer is a seasoned expert who owns complex safety writing deliverables end-to-end. In this role, they independently lead the authoring of high-impact safety documents, such as aggregate reports and Risk Management Plans (RMPs), translating complex safety data and analyses into clear, compelling outputs. They are accountable for driving timelines, managing stakeholders, and ensuring the quality of safety deliverables that address important safety issues. Beyond day-to-day delivery, this role is a key champion for continuous improvement, best practices, and the smart adoption of new tools and technologies in the safety writing space.

Responsibilities

This role will provide YOU the opportunity to lead key activities to progress YOUR career. These responsibilities include some of the following:

Independently lead preparation of complex clinical and post-market safety documents (e.g., DSURs, PSURs/PBRERs, ACOs, PADERs/PAERs, RMPs, and responses to regulatory authority questions), with strong hands-on experience across all key aggregate safety documents.

Operate effectively within a global, complex matrix organization, working autonomously and confidently influencing stakeholders on process discipline, quality standards, and “how” work should be done.

Lead cross-functional teams to develop content strategy, coordinate contributions, manage review schedules and timelines, and ensure high-quality, fit-for-purpose documents that accurately reflect safety, clinical, and statistical data and meet GSK and global/regional/local regulatory requirements.

Provide oversight to co-authors, vendor writers, and teams of writers, serving as a mentor/buddy, ensuring the quality of contributions, and leading initiatives to improve medical writing processes, including effective use of authoring/review tools and other automation/AI-enabled technology platforms.

Why You?

This role is hybrid. You will work on-site in Canada part of the week and remotely the remainder. Exact on-site days will be agreed with your manager.

Basic Qualifications

We are seeking professionals with the following required skills and qualifications to help us achieve our goals

Bachelor’s degree in life sciences, health sciences, pharmacy, nursing or a related field.

Minimum 5 years of advanced medical/regulatory safety writing experience in pharmaceutical, biotech or clinical research settings, including summarization and interpretation of complex data and independent preparation of complex clinical and safety documents for regulatory use.

Advanced understanding of, and ability to apply, statistical, regulatory and medical communication concepts needed to independently write complex safety documents.

In-depth working knowledge of relevant regulatory guidance (e.g., ICH, GVP, FDA, EMA) pertaining to clinical trial conduct, pharmacovigilance, and document-specific requirements, as well as Good Clinical Practice (GCP).

Strong understanding of core cross-functional clinical research roles and procedures (e.g., safety, regulatory, clinical, epidemiology, statistics and programming) and how they relate to document strategy and operational preparation.

Experience across multiple therapeutic areas, with confidence to quickly dive into new areas without extensive lead time.

Proven ability to manage multiple projects and deadlines in a fast-paced, global/matrix environment, working autonomously while effectively influencing stakeholders.

Strong written and verbal English communication skills and excellent attention to detail.

Preferred Qualifications

If you have the following characteristics, it would be a plus

Advanced degree (PhD, PharmD, MSc, MPH) or equivalent scientific training.

Advanced safety writing skills with expertise across most key safety document types and experience leading regulatory submission projects or preparing dossier modules.

Comfort interpreting statistical outputs and collaborating with statisticians on tables and data displays.

Highly collaborative and capable of leading cross-functional, multicultural, and hybrid/distributed teams across regions, negotiating solutions, advising on document structure and content, and working effectively with diverse stakeholders (e.g., health authorities, external partners, contractors/CROs, and patients).

Experience working with external partners, contractors or clinical research organizations, including vendor oversight and coordination.

Prior mentoring, training or people development experience, supporting the growth of less experienced writers and team members.

Able to independently lead multiple projects simultaneously and deliver multiple high-quality documents on schedule.

Advanced computer skills and general computer literacy, including comfort with collaboration tools and remote-working technologies.

Excellent English language proficiency, both verbal and written.

What you will gain

You will join a team focused on patient impact and continuous learning. You will develop technical and strategic skills in regulatory writing, submission planning and cross-functional collaboration. Your work will shape development programs and contribute to better outcomes for patients.

Ready to apply?

If this role fits your skills and ambition, we want to hear from you. Please apply and tell us how your experience will help shape treatments that matter.

#LI-Hybrid

Skills

Clinical Development, Clinical Trial Designs, Communication, Customer Service, Decision Making, Emotional Intelligence, Influencing Without Authority, Learning Agility, Literature Reviews, Medical Writing, Pharmaceutical Industry, Presentation Techniques, Regulatory Submissions, Scientific Writing, Strategic Thinking

In compliance with Ontario's provincial pay transparency legislation, this job posting includes a salary range to support equitable and informed hiring practices. The annual compensation for this role is CAD118,000 to CAD168,000 , determined based on experience, qualifications, and internal equity. GSK is dedicated to promoting transparency and fairness throughout our recruitment process.Salary ranges for other locations are shown because some markets have pay transparency laws that require salary information on job postings, and those locations are potential job sites for this role. If salary ranges are not displayed in the job posting for a specific location or country, the relevant compensation will be discussed during the recruitment process.

Why GSK?

Uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together.

GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. We aim to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade, as a successful, growing company where people can thrive. We get ahead of disease by preventing and treating it with innovation in specialty medicines and vaccines. We focus on four therapeutic areas: respiratory, immunology and inflammation; oncology; HIV; and infectious diseases – to impact health at scale.

People and patients around the world count on the medicines and vaccines we make, so we’re committed to creating an environment where our people can thrive and focus on what matters most. Our culture of being ambitious for patients, accountable for impact and doing the right thing is the foundation for how, together, we deliver for patients, shareholders and our people.

GSK is an Equal Opportunity Employer. This ensures that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information (including family medical history), military service or any basis prohibited under federal, state or local law. GSK is committed to accommodating persons with disabilities. If you need accommodation at any stage of the application process or want more information on our accommodation policies, please contact us at canada-recruitment@gsk.com .  Please do not send resumes to this e-mail and instead apply through the online application process of this posting.

Important notice to Employment businesses/ Agencies

GSK does not accept referrals from employment businesses and/or employment agencies in respect of the vacancies posted on this site. All employment businesses/agencies are required to contact GSK's commercial and general procurement/human resources department to obtain prior written authorization before referring any candidates to GSK. The obtaining of prior written authorization is a condition precedent to any agreement (verbal or written) between the employment business/ agency and GSK. In the absence of such written authorization being obtained any actions undertaken by the employment business/agency shall be deemed to have been performed without the consent or contractual agreement of GSK. GSK shall therefore not be liable for any fees arising from such actions or any fees arising from any referrals by employment businesses/agencies in respect of the vacancies posted on this site.

Job details

Seniority
Principal
Function
Medical Affairs
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Mississauga Milverton Drive, Canada
Employment type
Full time

How this role compares

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

We currently track 353 comparable Principal Medical Affairs roles across 67 biopharma companies.

353Comparable roles tracked
325Currently active
67Companies hiring similar roles
29Countries represented

Salary context

151 of 353 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 Not listed on this posting
Lowest disclosed · Principal Strategic Medical Writer · AbbVie $109,500/yr – $208,500/yr
Peer group range $159,000 – $392,100 (median $235,450)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 353 comparable roles

United States242
United Kingdom17
Germany11
Taiwan10
India9
Japan9

+ 23 more countries

Seniority mix

353 of 353 peers have a known seniority level

Director200
Senior147
Principal6

Therapeutic area mix

150 of 353 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology53
Dermatology & Aesthetics20
Immunology19
Rare Disease14
Neuroscience13
Cardiovascular / CVRM12
Respiratory8
Vaccines & Infectious Disease6
Gastroenterology4
Ophthalmology1

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.

50%similar
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50%similar
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Incyte Remote Location, Canada Director
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45%similar
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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.

50%
(Senior) Medical Science Liaison - Northern California & Nevada (CA, NV, HI) (San Francisco, CA, US, 94110)
BioNTech · San Francisco, Canada · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Adjacent seniority Country
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Director Medical Affairs, Dermatology
Incyte · Remote Location, Canada · Director
Function Therapeutic area Adjacent seniority Country
45%
Principal Scientific Writer
Sanofi Healthcare India Private Limited · Hyderabad, India · Principal
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
45%
Principal Strategic Medical Writer
AbbVie · Chicago, IL · Principal
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.