Overview of Role:The Accounting Manager, R&D (Non-Clinical) plays a critical, hands-on role in owning and managing R&D accruals and expense accounting for non-clinical trial activities across a global footprint (U.S., Europe, China). This role is central to ensuring R&D expenses are accurately accrued, analyzed, and supported, with close collaboration across vendors, internal project managers, and cross functional teams.
This position requires a hands-on accounting leader who goes beyond transactional accounting to critically assess R&D activity and ensure accruals accurately represent the business. Working cross functionally with R&D, vendors, and project stakeholders across the U.S., Europe, and China, this role plays a key part in supporting global audits and statutory financial reporting in a dynamic, high growth environment.
Role and Responsibilities:- Own the end-to-end R&D accrual and expense accounting process for nonclinical activities, ensuring costs are accurately captured and reflect underlying business activity
- Prepare and review monthly journal entries and account reconciliations, exercising judgment to assess completeness, accuracy, and overall reasonableness
- Partner closely with vendors, internal project managers, and cross functional R&D teams to obtain data, validate assumptions, and support accrual calculations
- Support R&D cost areas including manufacturing, patient safety, biostatistics, CMC, supply chain, and non-trial clinical operations expenses
- Play a key role in the monthly close process, contributing to continuous improvement, documentation, and close efficiency
- Support global audits and statutory financial statements across the U.S., UK, and Switzerland by preparing schedules, analyses, and audit support
- Contribute to internal controls, SOX readiness, and accounting process development as the company continues to scale
- Ad-hoc tasks as assigned
- All other duties as assigned
Experience, Education and Specialized Knowledge and Skills:- Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Business, related field
- A minimum of 5+ years of experience in accounting or finance with demonstrated ownership of accruals
- Hands-on experience with R&D accruals in a biotech or pharmaceutical setting, including familiarity with complex R&D cost structure
- Demonstrated ability to apply judgment, evaluate assumptions, and assess the reasonableness of accruals in situations where inputs are incomplete or evolving
- Experience working cross functionally to interpret activity, resolve issues, and ensure accurate financial outcomes
- Exposure to global accounting environments, including supporting audits and statutory reporting across multiple jurisdictions
- Working knowledge of internal controls and close processes, with experience helping build, refine, and improve accounting practices in a growing organization
- Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and the ability to operate effectively in a fastmoving, high growth setting
- Experience with NetSuite, close management and reconciliation tools (e.g., FloQast), and contract management systems (e.g., Agiloft) preferred
- Proficiency with the Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, Word, etc)
This is the pay for this position
Pay Transparency
$140,000-$160,000 USD
Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, depth of experience, certifications, and specific work location. This may be different in other locations due to differences in the cost of labor. The total compensation package for this position may also include bonus, stock, benefits and/or other applicable variable compensation.
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