Senior Principal Scientist, Global Efficacy - Equine Therapeutic Area

About the role

Dechra is a growing, global specialist in veterinary pharmaceuticals, focused on the development, manufacture, marketing, and sales of high-quality products exclusively for veterinarians worldwide. Our values—(D)edication, (E)njoyment, (C)ourage, (H)onesty, (R)elationships, and (A)mbition—are embedded in our culture and guide our operations across nearly 3,000 colleagues globally.

The Senior Principal Scientist, Global Efficacy - Equine Therapeutic Area is responsible for developing and applying efficacy strategy for equine development programs within Dechra R&D. This role provides experienced scientific, clinical, and regulatory input across the development lifecycle, ensuring evidence-generation plans are robust, clinically relevant, aligned with regulatory expectations, and suitable to support development decisions. The role involves working with internal teams and external experts to translate equine disease understanding, clinical practice needs, and development objectives into practical study designs and evidence plans. The Senior Principal Scientist operates with a high level of independence, manages complex scientific questions, and provides broad input across assigned programs.

Responsibilities

• Develop and apply efficacy strategy for assigned equine development programs, ensuring evidence-generation plans support clear development decisions and regulatory submissions.
• Provide experienced input into equine efficacy study design and oversight, ensuring studies are clinically meaningful, scientifically robust, proportionate to risk, and feasible to deliver.
• Engage with CROs, investigators, referral centres, academic partners, consultants, and KOLs to support study delivery, endpoint selection, disease model development, and data interpretation.
• Contribute experienced input to equine disease models and translational tools to support current programs and future development needs.
• Collaborate with internal functions to align study design, endpoints, evidence-generation plans, risks, decisions, and documentation.
• Provide clear scientific recommendations to support issue resolution, risk management, project planning, and development decisions.

Requirements

• DVM, VMD, or equivalent veterinary degree; or advanced degree such as MSc, PhD, doctorate, board certification, diploma, or equivalent in veterinary medicine, equine science, biomedical science, animal science, pharmacology, or related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience in efficacy study design, execution, reporting, and interpretation, ideally including proof of concept, dose-selection, and clinical field studies.
• Experience working with CROs, clinical investigators, referral hospitals, academic centres, ambulatory practices, and external partners.
• Working knowledge of relevant regulatory requirements and expectations, including FDA-CVM, USDA (where applicable), EMA-CVMP, UK-VMD, VICH GCP, and GLP.
• Ability and willingness to travel nationally and internationally as required. Project leadership may be performed depending on program needs and individual capability.

Desirable Qualifications

• Vast experience in veterinary pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical R&D, preferably including equine product development, equine clinical practice, or equine research.
• Experience with disease models, translational tools, pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, dose selection, field studies, and clinical endpoints relevant to equine medicine.