Bay Area Biotech Companies Hiring Now

Northern California’s bay area, which includes San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Napa and Marin County, is home to some of the most well-established biopharma companies.

The atmosphere is chill, the mood relaxed – unless you happen to work for one of these scientific innovators where drive and determination are required to meet the mission.

The Biotech Bay region is home to 3,418 life sciences companies and 96,574 employees making an average of $148,285. Focuses and technologies range from cell and gene therapy to precision medicine and polymer chemistry, targeting rare diseases along with more pervasive killers. And these companies just happen to have a wealth of job openings right now.

Nestled in Foster City, a small hamlet in San Mateo County, Gilead Sciences is well-known for its achievements in viral diseases, most notably human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

With a mission of developing novel therapeutics for life-threatening illnesses with unmet medical need, Gilead has an impressive list of FDA-approved medicines. These include Veklury, better known as the COVID-19 therapy, remdesivir, Biktarvy, a single tablet HIV regimen, and Yescarta, a chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) drug acquired along with Kite Pharma in 2017.

In 2021, Gilead employed approximately 14,400 individuals. This was an increase of around 5.88% from 2020, and the company is growing still.

The roles Gilead is currently hiring for include:

Director, Clinical Operations Oncology - Lung. The successful applicant will have at least 12 years of experience in clinical operations and a Bachelor’s degree or higher in a relevant scientific discipline. Those with a Master’s degree or higher will need 10 years of experience in clinical operations.

Senior Statistical Advisor. Qualified candidates should have a BS and 16 years of industry experience in pharma/device/diagnostics or academia experience in clinical trial research, an MS and 12 years of related experience or a Ph.D. in Biostatistics and 12 years of related experience.

Established in 1997, San Rafael-based BioMarin specializes in super-rare diseases. BioMarin is targeting cures for diseases like inherited metabolic disorder, Phenylketonuria (PKU), and the rapidly progressing pediatric brain disorder, late infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis type 2 (CLN2). The company also has a strong presence in hemophilia.

With six commercially approved drugs and a market cap of $15.4 billion, BioMarin was cited by Zacks Equity Research as one of four potential biotech takeover targets for 2021. Whether this will be the case, only time will tell, but BioMarin is getting even bigger, with 89 open posts, including:

Director, Analytical Sciences. Anyone wanting to make this strategic career move will need to have a Ph.D. in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology, or a related field, plus 10+ relevant industry experience; or M.S. with 15+ years; or B.S. with 18+ years.

Senior Manager, Business Process Transformation. The successful candidate will possess a minimum of five years of experience in a Clinical Supply Chain / Contract Manufacturing operation in the pharmaceutical or biotech industry and 1 year of experience in a GMP environment.

Director, Alliance Management. This job is for those with 8+ years of relevant experience, past experience in healthcare and an MBA or other relevant advanced degree.

Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT) is comprised of nearly 400 people driven by the mission of delivering life-changing treatments for those with sickle cell disease (SCD) and other severe blood disorders. In late 2019, the FDA approved GBT’s oxbryta® (voxelotor) as the first treatment to directly inhibit sickle hemoglobin polymerization, the root cause of SCD. Other investigative medicines include a potential treatment to limit the frequency of vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs) and multiple other shots on goal for SCD.

Located on Oyster Point Boulevard in South San Francisco, GBT is looking for several positions, including:

Sickle Cell Therapeutic Specialist. GBT is open to hiring someone who has over five years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry, a BS/BA or MBA and specialty experience.

Director, Patient Marketing. This is an opportunity for a candidate with a Bachelor’s degree in marketing or related fields, a minimum of 9-14 years of experience in patient marketing within the pharma or biotech industry and four or more years of experience leading teams and/or managing people.

San Francisco-based Nektar Therapeutics is focused on curing cancer and autoimmune disease using polymer chemistry, a unique approach to drug design that uses optimized pharmacology to create new molecular entities.

Nektar is leveraging this technology to develop clinical-stage investigational drugs with partners Bristol Myers Squibb, Biogen, Eli Lilly & Co., and Vaccibody.

Here are just a couple of the positions Nektar is looking to fill.

Associate Director, Information Security. This position is for candidates with a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline. An MBA or Master’s degree in Computer Science or other business-related discipline is preferred. A minimum of 10 years of experience in a multidiscipline environment is preferred, along with five years of management experience.

Senior Scientist, Research Biology. For this role, Nektar is looking for candidates with a Ph.D. in a scientific discipline or equivalent experience. A minimum of 5 years of work experience in a research and/or development environment is required.

This genomic medicine company touches on many of biotech’s hottest areas including gene therapy, cell therapy, and in vivo genome editing. Sangamo’s diverse preclinical and clinical-stage pipeline is aimed at solving life-limiting diseases like Hemophilia A, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Phenylketonuria (PKU), and Fabry disease.

Anyone wishing to participate in this mission should check out one of Sangamo’s available positions.

Senior Manger, Quality Control Raw Materials. This job requires a Bachelor’s degree or advanced degree in chemistry, biochemistry or related discipline, demonstrated leadership and management skills, 8+ years of experience working in the cGMP laboratory and 3+ years of experience managing analytical quality control laboratory.

Bioinformatics Analyst III. To be qualified for this role, a candidate must have an MS (with 4-5 years of relevant experience) or Ph.D. (with 3-4 years of relevant experience) in Bioinformatics, Computer Science, Statistics, Bioengineering or a related area. They must also have a strong background with NGS platforms and analysis.

This cell and gene therapy hybrid is developing its cell engineering platform to deliver any payload to any cell in a specific, predictable and repeatable way. Sana is aiming this technology at a wide range of oncologic, genetic, CNS, and cardiovascular targets.

Sana has been vocal about its culture of inclusion, diversity and equity (IDE), which leadership believes is paramount to its patient-centric culture. By tapping Head of Development Operations, Farah Anwar, as its IDE leader, Sana has ensured that a senior executive is privy to the people dynamics as well the medical ones.

Here’s a few of the positions Sana is currently looking to fill.

Principal Scientist, Computational Biology. To be qualified for this role, candidates should have a Ph.D. in computational biology, genetics, bioinformatics, statistics or related discipline with 8+ years of academic or industry experience, as well as experience with integration site analyses of therapeutic viral vectors, including clonal tracking.

Scientist, Gene Therapy Research. To apply to this position, interested candidates should have a Ph.D. in a scientific discipline or a Masters’ degree in a scientific specialty. They should also have a minimum of four years of experience and proven proficiency in independent research and in the design of laboratory experiments and techniques.