Principal Statistician

Job Description

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Designs, plans and executes biostatistical components of plans for research and development projects that establish the conditions essential for determining safety, efficacy, and marketability of medical device products.
• Uses sound statistical methodology to conduct studies relating to the life cycle of the product.
• In development-phase projects, prepares the statistical component of protocols which meet project objectives, health authority guidelines, and clinical trial methodology standards.
• Develops and/or applies statistical theories, methods, and software.
• Summarizes and interprets data into tabular and graphical formats amenable to principles of statistical inference and is responsible for the statistical component of reports describing studies, outcomes and methods used.
• Provides specifications and directions to the clinicians/statistical programmers
• Supports the regulatory review and approval of the experimental therapies.
• May partner in trial design and in establishing standards for clinical conduct, and the collection, management and/or reporting of data.

Other Responsibilities:

• Applies statistical knowledge and experience to the design of clinical studies, ensuring that study objectives can be met.
• This requires calculation of sample size and power, as well as possible determination of appropriate design assumptions from published literature.
• Identifies potential threats to study credibility and validity, and works with study team to prevent, track, and manage potential problems.
• Writes the statistical analysis plan for the study.
• Performs statistical analysis using statistical programming software (e.g., SAS, R etc.)
• Takes a leadership role in responding to relevant questions from FDA, FDA Advisory Panels, and/or other regulatory agencies, and in negotiations with regulatory agencies regarding study design and interpretation.
• Validates and provides clear documentation of analysis programs.
• Writes Results and Methods sections of reports and manuscripts as needed.
• Consults with other (e.g., non-clinical) staff on statistical and analysis issues.
• Leads development of policies and procedures for the department and the statistics group.
• Mentors and trains Statisticians and/or Senior Statisticians in their job duties and responsibilities.
• Attends and contributes to project and department meetings.

Must Have (Minimum Requirements):

• Bachelor’s degree required with a minimum of 7 years of statistics (i.e., biostatistics, data analysis) experience or advanced degree with a minimum of 5 years of statistics (i.e., biostatistics, data analysis) experience.

Nice to Have (Preferred Qualifications):

• Master’s degree or PhD in Biostatistics, Statistics, or equivalent.
• 7+ years of post-graduate statistical experience.
• Experience in analysis of data from clinical studies and design of clinical trials.
• Strong applied statistical skills, including survival analysis, regression modeling, Bayesian methods, adaptive trial designs, group sequential methods, longitudinal analysis (including mixed models), interim analysis, missing data strategies and multiple testing strategies.
• Experience with adaptive designs.
• Advanced knowledge of and/or experience with statistical programming packages, including SAS, R, or another statistical analysis package.
• Experience communicating complex statistical/machine learning results to technical and non-technical through journal publications, conferences, presentations/posters, and seminars
• High level of knowledge of clinical trial methods and execution.
• Experience in Good Clinical Practice (GCP) and/or regulatory compliance guidelines for clinical trials and medical devices (e.g., ISO, MDD/MDR).
• Prior experience in FDA and/or global regulatory submissions.
• Participation in FDA regulatory meetings, especially panel preparation and presentation Experience writing or updating clinical reports/documents.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate technical content to non-statisticians (written and verbal).

Differentiating Factors

Autonomy:

• Recognized expert, managing large projects or processes.
• Exercises considerable latitude in determining deliverables of assignments, with limited oversight from manager.
• Coaches, reviews and delegates work to lower-level specialists.

Organizational Impact:

• Contributes to defining the direction for new products, processes, standards, or operational plans based on business strategy with a significant impact on work group results.
• May manage large projects or processes that span outside of immediate job area.

Innovation and Complexity:

• Problems and issues faced are difficult, moderately complex and undefined, and require detailed information gathering, analysis and investigation.
• Develops solutions to moderately complex problems, and/or makes moderate to significant improvements of processes, systems or products independently to enhance performance of job area.
• Implements solutions to problems.

Communication and Influence:

• Represents organization as a primary contact for specific projects and initiatives; communicates with internal and external customers and vendors at various levels.
• May negotiate with others to reach understanding or agreement, and influence decision making.

Leadership and Talent Management:

• Typically provides guidance, coaching and training to other employees within job area.
• Typically manages major / moderately complex projects, involving delegation of work and review of work products, at times acting as a team leader.