Director of Data Science, Formation Bio
$235-307k
+ Equity
3+ days a week in office
Powering hyper-efficient, tech-driven drug development
Open for applications
Powering hyper-efficient, tech-driven drug development
101-200 employees
Open for applications
$235-307k
+ Equity
3+ days a week in office
101-200 employees
Company mission
To bring new treatments to patients faster and more efficiently.
Role
Who you are
- PhD in computational sciences or life sciences
- Strong programming skills, particularly in Python
Desirable
- 7+ years of post-academic experience in life sciences (biotech, pharma, consulting)
- Extensive experience in multi-modal bioinformatics analysis
- Proven expertise in cloud computing environments, including proficiency with tabular and/or graph databases
- Strong background in machine learning and deep learning, particularly in biological applications
- Experience with large language models (LLM)
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with engineering teams on production systems
- Strong communication skills with proven ability to present complex technical findings to senior stakeholders
What the job involves
- As the Director of Data Science at Formation Bio, you will be at the forefront of revolutionizing drug development through AI and advanced analytics. In this role, you'll lead crucial initiatives that directly impact our drug development portfolio, from developing sophisticated models for patient selection to creating AI-powered solutions for clinical trial optimization
- You'll work at the intersection of computational biology, machine learning, and drug development, collaborating with cross-functional teams to translate complex biological data into actionable insights. This position offers a unique opportunity to shape the future of pharmaceutical development by leveraging cutting-edge AI technologies while making a meaningful impact on patient lives
- Lead and execute complex data science projects that directly advance our drug development portfolio
- Develop and implement sophisticated models for therapeutic hypothesis evaluation, including patient stratification and biomarker identification
- Design and create AI models for modernizing clinical trial evaluations, including surrogate endpoints
- Aid in the development and training of AI agents to automate and optimize biomedical workflows
- Collaborate cross-functionally with clinical, technical, and research teams
- Present complex analytical findings to senior stakeholders, including executive leadership
Our take
Clinical drug trials are lengthy and expensive, delaying the supply of vital new drugs to patients and costing lives. For Formation Bio, this is an efficiency issue - one which it hopes to solve with its end-to-end automation solution.
According to the company, its approach has teams running medical trials twice as fast and at half the cost. This success has pushed Formation to expand beyond supporting trials into developing assets itself. In 2025, it reached a major milestone by licensing its first drug in a deal worth up to hundreds of millions. Alongside this, the company has also added an early immunology program to its pipeline, signalling a broader push into in-house development.
Now a Unicorn, with partners including Pfizer, Sanofi, Novartis and 23andMe, Formation Bio is steadily embedding itself within the Big Pharma ecosystem. How far it can go remains an open question, but the prospect of cheaper drugs and faster innovation is becoming harder for the industry to ignore.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
30% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Jun 2024
$372m
SERIES D
Sep 2021
$156m
SERIES C
Total funding: $530.3m
Company benefits
- Flexible Time Off: We have a flexible PTO policy and we encourage our team members to take the time that they need to recharge
- Parental Leave: All parents receive 12 weeks of fully paid bonding leave to welcome a newborn, adopted, or fostered child, and birthing parents are eligible for an additional 6-8 weeks of paid leave
- Comprehensive Benefits: All full time employees have access to health, vision, and dental insurance. Additionally, we provide pre-tax commuter benefits, access to a 401k plan, short and long-term disability and life insurance.
- Education & Career Development Resources: Formation Bio offers a plethora of professional development resources to employees, including a yearly L&D stipend, internal mobility opportunities, in depth trainings, leadership coaching, and more.
- Community: Our teams collaborate closely to achieve our mission, supporting each other across functions and priorities. We build connection through team-building events, quarterly company gatherings, a biennial company-wide retreat, and various Employee Resource Groups.
Company values
- Think in first principles: We rigorously interrogate all possible paths to understand how we can do things differently and faster. We challenge assumptions, ask why, and solve problems from the ground up
- Be a scientist: We are curious and we continuously learn. We steelman, not strawman in debates. We listen, rapidly iterate, and make the best decisions with the evidence we have
- Deliver care: We lead with empathy. We value different perspectives, collaborate across teams, and support one another. We give and receive direct, actionable and timely feedback to hold ourselves and others to a high bar
- Champion the mission: We keep the mission as our north star and deliver impact for patients. We hold ourselves accountable for our wins and failures and keep moving forward
Company HQ
Midtown South, New York, NY
Articles
Leadership
Benjamine Liu
(Co-Founder & CEO)Worked as a computational biologist at various Neurology departments, following a D.Phil in computational Biology and Psychiatry at Oxford. They are also an Advisor at Harvard Business School.
Linhao Zhang
(Co-Founder)Linhao is also the Founder of Foundation 649. Previously, they were a Product Engineer at Oscar Insurance, a Software Engineer at Salesforce, and co-founder of Day 7 Photography.
Dan Neil
(CTO)Prior to joining Formation Bio in 2025, Dan was the Chief Data Officer at Tessera Therapeutics. Before that, they spent nearly 7 years at BenevolentAI in various roles, including SVP of AI & NY Site Lead and CTO.
Dale Klasko
(Senior Vice President, People)Dale built her career as a campus recruiting leader and strategic people business partner at growth-stage companies in the adtech & finservices industries.
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