Preclinical R&D Expert: In-house Drug Development

What you'll do

The client is a venture-backed AI lab building physics-based foundation models for chemistry, materials science and drug discovery, now extending into more of pharmaceutical development. It wants preclinical scientists who have moved real programs toward the clinic to shape what it builds.

The work mixes labelling with advice:

• Reviewing technical material and real R&D data in your specialism
• Labelling, classifying and annotating scientific data and model outputs
• Giving an expert view on the calls that matter in a program: target and modality selection, optimisation, trade-offs and risk
• Helping set the structure and quality standards of the client's dataset pipeline
• Taking part in expert discussions, interviews and research sessions

The advisory part is the distinctive one. Most annotation roles ask you to grade answers; this one also asks how a program team would actually weigh a modality choice or a tox signal, which is closer to consulting than to rubric work. You interface directly with the client team rather than through a queue.

Who fits

The ad is strict about the kind of company you come from:

• Must have: hands-on, non-administrative preclinical R&D at a company that develops its own assets in-house and has taken programs to the clinic
• Must have: a core R&D function (discovery biology, medicinal chemistry, protein or antibody engineering, computational, in vivo or translational, pharmacology and PK/PD, toxicology, or CMC and formulation)
• Must have: hands-on work with at least one modality: small molecules, monoclonal antibodies, peptides, ADCs, bispecifics, mRNA, siRNA, ASOs, PROTACs, molecular glues, cell or gene therapies, radioligands and others
• 5+ years of relevant industry R&D (flexible for depth)
• Nice to have: a program taken through lead optimisation or IND-enabling work; time at mid-sized, emerging or resource-constrained biotech, ideally outside the top-20 pharma companies

Probably not a fit: mainly CRO or CDMO services, academic-only, QC or analytical-only, clinical-development-only, diagnostics, or regulatory and medical writing.

Seniority from individual contributor to Director is welcome. The ad prefers smaller biotech, where scientists typically cover more of the pipeline themselves, which seems to be the breadth the lab wants.

What it pays

$60–100 per hour, for an ongoing part-time engagement of roughly 10 hours a week (about $600–1,000 weekly). Payments are weekly on Stripe or Wise, as an independent contractor. The ad does not say what sets your rate within the band.

Worth knowing

Good:

• Open to every drug modality, from small molecules to cell and gene therapy
• IC through Director welcome, so you do not need a leadership title
• Advisory and interview work alongside annotation, with direct access to the client
• Ongoing rather than a fixed pilot, at a manageable 10 hours a week
• No location requirement published

Less good:

• The in-house-asset rule excludes a lot of good scientists (CRO, academic, QC)
• $60 is a low floor for a senior industry scientist
• The lab is not named
• H-1B and STEM OPT candidates cannot be supported
• Contractor engagement; projects can be extended, shortened or ended early
• You cannot use your employer's confidential data, which limits how concrete your examples can be

About this listing

Posted by Mercor for an unnamed AI lab, as an hourly remote contract, confirmed open on 24 September 2026. The pay band, 10-hour engagement, must-haves and exclusions are the ad's own. See Mercor.