Discovering and developing new medicines, vaccines, and biological tools—from the first idea in a lab to a product ready for testing in people.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Medicinal Chemist: Designs and builds brand-new molecules that could become future drugs. Typical pay $130k.
Pharmacologist: Figures out how drugs move through and act on the body—what dose works and what side effects appear. Typical pay $120k.
Protein / Antibody Engineer: Redesigns proteins and antibodies so they fight disease better—like custom-building molecular tools. Typical pay $135k.
Structural Biologist (Cryo-EM): Takes 3D 'photos' of molecules at near-atomic detail to see exactly how they work. Typical pay $120k.
Vaccine Research Scientist: Develops vaccines that train the immune system to fight viruses and bacteria. Typical pay $115k.
Director of Research (Biotech): Leads teams of scientists and decides which research projects get money and time. Typical pay $161k.
Biotech Startup Founder: Turns a lab discovery into a company that tries to bring a new drug or tool to market. Typical pay $180k.
Lab Automation Engineer: Programs and builds robots that run experiments around the clock. Typical pay $115k.
DMPK Scientist: Studies how the body absorbs, breaks down, and gets rid of a new drug. Typical pay $130k.
Chemical Biologist: Uses chemistry tools to study and control living systems. Typical pay $120k.
mRNA Therapeutics Scientist: Designs and tests messenger RNA medicines and vaccines at biotech and drug companies, tuning RNA sequences and the fat particles that deliver them. Typical pay $135k.
Oligonucleotide Chemist: Designs and builds short strands of DNA or RNA used as medicines, like drugs that silence a disease-causing gene. Typical pay $120k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Biochemist: Studies the chemistry of living things—proteins, enzymes, DNA—to understand disease and design new medicines. Typical pay $104k.
Medical Scientist: Researches the causes of human disease and tests ways to prevent or treat it. Typical pay $101k.
Assay Development Scientist: Invents the tests that measure whether a drug candidate actually does what it should. Typical pay $100k.
Formulation Scientist: Figures out how to turn a drug into a pill, injection, or inhaler that is stable and works in the body. Typical pay $105k.
Process Development Scientist: Works out how to grow and purify a drug at large scale, moving from a flask to a 2,000-liter tank. Typical pay $108k.
Research Associate (Biotech): Runs experiments day to day in a biotech company's lab—the hands of a research team. Typical pay $68k.
Natural Products Chemist: Hunts for medicines hidden in plants, fungi, sea sponges, and soil bacteria. Typical pay $95k.
Compound Management Specialist: Looks after a drug company's library of millions of chemical samples, storing them frozen and sending tiny amounts to scientists for testing. Typical pay $72k.
Peptide Synthesis Chemist: Makes peptides, short chains of amino acids, used in drugs like GLP-1 weight-loss medicines and in research tools. Typical pay $88k.
Starter: fastest way in
Biological Technician: Helps scientists by setting up equipment, running tests, and keeping records in a biology lab. Typical pay $52k.
Cell Culture Technician: Grows and cares for living cells used in research and medicine-making. Typical pay $48k.
Media Preparation Technician: Makes the nutrient 'food' (media) and solutions that cells and microbes grow in. Typical pay $42k.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.