AbbVie Posted November 10, 2026

Senior Scientist I - Process Chemistry

North Chicago, IL Full-time
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AbbVie 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

Company Description

About AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology and neuroscience - and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at  www.abbvie.com . Follow @abbvie on  LinkedIn,   Facebook ,  Instagram ,  X  and  YouTube.

Job Description

The Process Chemistry team is responsible for inventing and executing the chemical processes and preparing active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) to enable toxicology studies, clinical trials, and drug product development for AbbVie’s pre-clinical and clinical candidates. We create valuable intellectual property through composition of matter, chemical processes, and technology, resulting in the development of safe and cost-effective commercial manufacturing processes.

AbbVie Process Chemistry is seeking a highly motivated Senior Scientist to conduct chemical process research and development, supporting projects from pre-clinical stages through early clinical phases.

Key Responsibilities:

The successful candidate will be responsible for developing and executing chemical processes to support clinical development of potential therapies, which may include small molecules, antibody drug conjugates, peptides, and/or oligonucleotides.

Routinely demonstrate scientific initiative and creativity in research or development activities to resolve key project hurdles.

Learns fast, grasps the "essence”, and can change course quickly where indicated.

Builds strong relationships with peers and cross functionally with partners outside of team to enable higher performance.

Highly autonomous and productive in performing laboratory research or method development, requiring only minimal direction from or interaction with supervisor.

Maintain a high level of productivity in the laboratory setting.

Publish research in peer-reviewed journals and present their work at scientific conferences.

Creates a learning environment, embraces the ideas of others, open to suggestions and experimentation for improvement.

Adheres to corporate standards regarding code of conduct, safety, quality, and appropriate

Qualifications

Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD Degree in Organic Chemistry with typically 10+ (BS), 8+ (MS) or 0+ (PhD) years of experience

Possesses a thorough theoretical and practical understanding of own scientific discipline.

A broad range of functional expertise in modern synthetic organic chemistry, compound purification, spectral analysis/interpretation. Experience in peptides, bioconjugations, biocatalysis, AI/ML, or oligonucleotides is also desired.

An ability to search the chemical literature and evaluate potential solutions to synthetic problems.

Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Additional Information

​Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state or local law: ​

The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Company believes in good faith it will pay for this role at the time of this posting based on the job grade for this position. Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location, and we may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future. ​

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick), medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees.​

This job is eligible to participate in our short-term incentive programs. ​

Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of  any bonus, commission, incentive, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole and absolute discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent with applicable law. ​

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community.  Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled.

US & Puerto Rico only - to learn more, visit  https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/equal-employment-opportunity-employer.html

US & Puerto Rico applicants seeking a reasonable accommodation, click here to learn more:

https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/reasonable-accommodations.html

Job details

Seniority
Senior
Function
Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
North Chicago, IL
Employment type
Full-time

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 390 comparable Senior Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research roles across 55 biopharma companies.

390Comparable roles tracked
364Currently active
55Companies hiring similar roles
21Countries represented

Salary context

176 of 390 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 $96,500/yr – $183,500/yr
Lowest disclosed · Senior Primate Behavior Specialist · Labcorp $70,000/yr – $80,000/yr
Highest disclosed · Toxicology Senior Research Fellow · Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc (US) $232,000/yr – $348,000/yr
Peer group range $75,000 – $290,000 (median $160,413)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 390 comparable roles

United States298
China14
India13
United Kingdom10
Switzerland8
Germany7

+ 15 more countries

Seniority mix

390 of 390 peers have a known seniority level

Senior213
Principal146
Associate Director31

Therapeutic area mix

37 of 390 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology15
Immunology10
Neuroscience8
Cardiovascular / CVRM3
Vaccines & Infectious Disease1

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
Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Groton, United States Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Groton, United States Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
AbbVie North Chicago, IL Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Gilead Sciences, Inc. Foster City, United States Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Gilead Sciences, Inc. Foster City, United States Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Amgen Inc. Thousand Oaks, United States Senior
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.

Or follow a whole field: get every new Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research job in the United States, and choose locations and companies.

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%
Senior Scientist Mass Spectrometrist
Pharmacia & Upjohn Company · Groton, United States · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Sr. Associate Scientist
Gilead Sciences, Inc. · Foster City, United States · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Senior Associate Scientist, RNA Therapeutics
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (USA) · Tarrytown, United States · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Senior Toxicologist
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (USA) · Cambridge, United States · Senior
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.