Associate Director, Statistical Programming

About the role

Novartis is looking for an Associate Director, Statistical Programming for its Global Drug Development programme in the CRM therapy area, based in London, UK. The role leads a community of programmers on complex clinical programmes, driving quality, efficiency and innovation while supporting the adoption of new tools. Remote working can be considered, but relocation support is not offered.

Key responsibilities

• Lead statistical programming as a Lead/Program Programmer on large or complex projects, or a disease area, with phase I to IV clinical studies.
• Coordinate programmers internally and externally, make statistical programming decisions and propose strategies at project or disease level.
• Develop the statistical programming strategy and scientific documentation with the Biostatisticians.
• Assign resources and workload within the team and share them between groups to meet company priorities.
• Act as functional manager of local or global associates, supervising and advising them.
• Work with Biostatistics and Data Management teams on timelines, scope and resource planning, and represent the function in submissions and project leadership.
• Drive standardisation and adopt tools such as R packages (e.g. Tidyverse), R Shiny applications, Git-based version control and AI-enabled tools for data visualisation and reproducible workflows.
• Ensure timely development and validation, quality control and audit readiness of all statistical programming deliverables.
• Provide technical recommendations and thought leadership at project level.

Required profile

• University or college degree in life sciences, computer science, data science, pharmacy, statistics, nursing or an equivalent relevant degree.
• Proven leadership and management experience, with the ability to manage simultaneous trials and meet deadlines.
• Excellent understanding of clinical trials methodology, GCP and medical terminology.
• Experience in drug development with statistical programming.
• Ability to work under pressure, anticipate risks and communicate across functions and with external stakeholders in a global environment.

Required skills

• Statistical programming and statistical analysis
• Clinical trials methodology and GCP
• R programming (Tidyverse, R Shiny)
• Version control (Git-based)

What we offer

• Expected annual base salary of £67,900 to £126,100, set according to skills, competencies and experience.
• Possible performance-based bonus.
• Flexible and hybrid working options where possible.
• Minimum 14 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Insurance plans, retirement plans, wellbeing resources and global recognition programmes.