Discovery ADME Project Leader

About the role

At Lilly, the Discovery Investigative ADME, Toxicology and BioAnalytical Research team focuses on pre-clinical discovery using innovative science and technology approaches to treat diseases with poor treatment options. We are seeking an experienced, accomplished drug hunter as a Discovery ADME Project Leader. The ideal candidate will provide deep mechanistic understanding of drug disposition, PK, and translational science, plus the ability to integrate biology, chemistry, and modeling. Experience with Small Molecule Discovery and in project teams with Beyond-Rule-of-Five and pan-modality chemotypes is advantageous. The successful candidate will bring exceptional scientific depth, acumen, and leadership as an integral member of the project team to create ambitious Target Product Profiles, help establish molecule design strategy and expectations, partner globally and cross-functionally, and ensure teams are advancing The Right Molecule to The Right Study at The Right Time (our three R’s). Geography for this position is open to Boston MA, Louisville CO, or Indianapolis IN.

Responsibilities

• Keep Safety as a priority.
• Develop and execute integrated preclinical ADME strategies aligned with discovery stage, target product profile (TPP), design hypotheses being tested, and regulatory expectations.
• Integrate ADME and pharmacology to enable translational simulations and modeling to support dose selection, design of PK/PD, efficacy, and safety studies.
• Define stage-, modality-, and issue-appropriate profiling, decision funnels (in silico, in vitro, in vivo to translational modeling).
• Guide compound design and optimization through data-driven design principles (clearance, permeability, solubility, DDI risk, transporter liabilities).
• Serve as the ADME strategy and science single-point-of-accountability on cross-functional program teams, translating ADME findings into actionable design and test hypotheses.
• Collaborate closely with Medicinal Chemistry, DMPK, Toxicology, Pharmacology, and other Discovery Functions to drive high quality candidate selections.
• Contribute to go/no-go decisions using quantitative PK/PD, IVIVE, and mechanistic interpretation.
• Represent ADME in portfolio governance discussions and leadership reviews.
• Implement best practices, assay innovation, and automation where appropriate. Drive continuous improvement in data reporting, knowledge management, and decision frameworks.
• Seek, leverage and deploy AI and agentic tools where possible to pipeline data, interpret data and share/accelerate results.
• Maintain inspection-ready documentation and alignment with regulatory expectations.
• Mentor, teach and grow junior scientists and contribute to functional capability building.

Qualifications

• PhD (or equivalent) in Pharmaceutical Sciences