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Director of AI for Clinical Trial Design and Optimization

Toronto, Canada Permanent Date posted Nov. 05, 2024
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Reference No. R2759422

Position Title: Director of AI for Clinical Trial Design and Optimization

Location: Toronto, ON

About the Job

We are an innovative global healthcare company, driven by one purpose: we chase the miracles of science to improve people’s lives. Our team, across some 100 countries, is dedicated to transforming the practice of medicine by working to turn the impossible into the possible. We provide potentially life-changing treatment options and life-saving vaccine protection to millions of people globally, while putting sustainability and social responsibility at the center of our ambitions.

Sanofi has recently embarked into a vast and ambitious digital transformation program. A cornerstone of this roadmap is the acceleration of its data transformation and of the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) solutions, to accelerate R&D, manufacturing and commercial performance and bring better drugs and vaccines to patients faster, to improve health and save lives.

We are an innovative global healthcare company with one purpose: to chase the miracles of science to improve people’s lives. We’re also a company where you can flourish and grow your career, with countless opportunities to explore, make connections with people, and stretch the limits of what you thought was possible. Ready to get started?

You are a dynamic ML / AI expert with either industry or academic experience in leading a team focused on the development, use and adoption of generative AI for biomedical text and sequence data. We are looking for people who can use and extend large LLMs for various applications, are comfortable with relevant engineering and scaling issues needed for use of this technology in a large company but also understand the biology and the underlying methods and algorithms. In our experience the best candidate for this position are people who are passionate about the use of machine learning and AI to unlock the mysteries of science and change the way biomedical research is performed.

Main Responsibilities

  • Lead a team of AI/ML and software engineers to evaluate, develop, extend and apply advance ML / AI methods for Clinical Trial design, analysis and optimization.

  • Develop, implement, test and refine advanced AI/ML methods for the processing, analysis, modeling integration and visualization of large-scale biomedical data including text, imaging and omics data.

  • Use AI and ML methods for knowledge extraction from text and other structured data and for integrating this data with other types of structure and unstructured data using multi-modal genAI methods.

  • Be in close contact with our clinical teams to discuss requirements, possible solutions and ways to integrate the proposed AI / ML methods to improve clinical trial design and execution.

  • Work closely with the leading generative AI companies (our vendors) to make sure our products are state of the art and up to date.

  • Work with developers, engineers, and MLOps to deliver AI/ML solutions to product teams.

About You:

  • PhD or MSc in computer science, machine learning, computational biology or related area with at least 6 years of experience in working on the development of methods related to deep NN, LLMs, generative AI or related topics

  • Knowledge of the biomedical domain. Knowledge of the clinical trial process is an advantage.

  • Experience in the use of AI for NLP and text analysis and in use cases downstream of NLP LLMs.

  • Demonstrated ability to lead a team of data scientists and generate software solutions that are of practical use.

  • Hands-on AI/ML modeling experience of complex datasets combined with strong understanding of theoretical foundations of AI/ML.

  • Experience developing deployable code and deploying models in product-focused development under an agile environment

  • Comfortable working in cloud and high-performance computing environments (e.g. AWS, GCP, Databricks, Apache Spark)

  • Excellent written and verbal communication, business analysis, data visualization and data storytelling skills

  • Strong interest in the use of AI in the life and medical sciences to improve patient lives.

Why Choose Us?

  • Bring the miracles of science to life alongside a supportive, future-focused team.

  • Discover endless opportunities to grow your talent and drive your career, whether it’s through a promotion or lateral move, at home or internationally.

  • Enjoy a thoughtful, well-crafted rewards package that recognizes your contribution and amplifies your impact.

  • Take good care of yourself and your family, with a wide range of health and wellbeing benefits including high-quality healthcare, prevention and wellness programs and at least 14 weeks’ gender-neutral parental leave.

Sanofi is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. Our goal is to attract, develop and retain highly talented employees from diverse backgrounds, allowing us to benefit from a wide variety of experiences and perspectives. We welcome and encourage applications from all qualified applicants. Accommodations for persons with disabilities required during the recruitment process are available upon request.

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Pursue progress. Discover extraordinary.

Progress doesn’t happen without people – people from different backgrounds, in different locations, doing different roles, all united by one thing: a desire to make miracles happen. You can be one of those people. Chasing change, embracing new ideas and exploring all the opportunities we have to offer. Let’s pursue progress. And let’s discover extraordinary together.

At Sanofi, we provide equal opportunities to all regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or gender identity.

Watch 'One day at Sanofi' and check out our Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives at sanofi.com

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