Analytical Development Lead

About Nūmi

Nūmi is a bioproduction platform harnessing human mammary cells to produce key ingredients with proven health benefits across all stages of life. More specifically, it is the first European cultivated breast milk company aiming to produce human milk constituents to better match the ideal nutrition for babies but also improve healthy aging. We are an early-stage, VC-backed biotech based in the heart of Paris (Hôpital Cochin, Paris 14th) and supported by world-class investors and scientific partners.

Nūmi's Values

Positivity: At Nūmi, we cultivate positivity every day. Our mission drives us to communicate with passion and energy, always keeping the bigger impact in sight. We celebrate quick wins, but never lose track of our ultimate goal.

Excellence: At Nūmi, excellence starts with dedication and a commitment to constant improvement. We embrace challenges as opportunities to learn and push ourselves to deliver high-quality results. Through effort, attention to detail, and integrity, we grow both individually and collectively as a team.

Team-Work and Pedagogy: At Nūmi, we believe that teamwork makes us stronger. We encourage knowledge-sharing, open feedback, and mutual respect. Each Nūmiz is here to lift others up, ensuring that the collective succeeds.

Ambition: At Nūmi, we set ambitious goals and challenge ourselves to think big. Nūmi is driven by bold ideas and relentless determination, always aiming for the stars to create real impact.

Why this role matters

As Nūmi scales its ingredient portfolio (bioactive proteins such as lactoferrin, human milk oligosaccharides, functional lipids) from bench to pilot and first regulatory batches, we are looking for an Analytical Development Lead to characterise our ingredients in depth and build the analytical methods that measure them. You will define what we measure, how we measure it and how reliable each result is, for every ingredient we produce.

Reporting to our CTO Eugénie, you will work hand in hand with our Process Development team (upstream and downstream), our Reg & QC Implementation Lead and our Preclinical & Bioactivity Lead. Your data will drive process decisions and feed our regulatory dossiers.

This is a role for an analytical scientist with solid hands-on experience characterising complex ingredients (proteins, oligosaccharides or lipids) and developing methods for them, who now wants to build the analytical platform of a first-of-its-kind product category.

Key Responsibilities

Ingredient Characterisation

• Define and deliver Nūmi's analytical strategy across the ingredient portfolio, from R&D samples to pilot and regulatory batches.
• Build the full characterisation package of each ingredient: identity and structure, purity, composition, isoforms and post-translational modifications for proteins, oligosaccharide and lipid profiles.
• Benchmark our ingredients against their human milk counterparts and marketed references in terms of structure and sequences.
• Characterise the process-related impurities specific to a cell culture process: host cell proteins, residual DNA, media components.

Method Development and Validation

• Develop, optimise and qualify fit-for-purpose analytical methods for each ingredient (LC-MS, HPLC/UPLC, HPAEC-PAD, electrophoresis, immunoassays), and validate them following ICH Q2 principles.
• Decide what to build in-house and what to run with external labs, and transfer methods to QC or partner labs.
• Set up reference standards, system suitability criteria and method documentation (SOPs, validation reports).

Process Support, Specifications and Stability

• Provide fast, reliable in-process and release analytics to the upstream and downstream teams, so every process decision rests on solid data.
• Propose release specifications and certificates of analysis for each ingredient.
• Design and run stability studies, and batch-to-batch and scale comparability studies.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Provide the analytical data, method descriptions and test material characterisation that our Reg & QC Implementation Lead and external partners need for regulatory dossiers and safety studies.
• Manage external analytical labs: scoping, follow-up and critical review of results.
• Partner with our Data team so every analytical result lands in a structured, queryable dataset.

Innovation and Digital Tools

• Evaluate and integrate new analytical technologies and AI-enabled tools that speed up data analysis and reporting.

Requirements

Experience & Knowledge

• PhD in analytical chemistry, biochemistry, food science or a related discipline with 7+ years of industry experience, or MSc with 10+ years, in analytical development or product characterisation for food ingredients, infant nutrition or biologics.
• Solid hands-on track record characterising complex ingredients (proteins, oligosaccharides or lipids): identity, purity, composition, impurities.
• Proven experience developing and validating analytical methods, with hands-on command of LC-MS and LC-MS/MS, HPLC/UPLC (RP, SEC, IEX), HPAEC-PAD, SDS-PAGE, Western blot and ELISA.
• The documentation rigour of a quality-controlled lab (for example GLP, or an ISO 17025 accredited lab).
• Experience working with external analytical labs or CROs.

Project & Process Leadership

• Ability to run several analytical projects in parallel and to set priorities with process and regulatory teams.
• Ability to turn complex analytical data into clear reports for scientific and regulatory audiences.
• Comfortable working across departments in a fast-paced startup environment.

Communication

• Excellent written and spoken English. French is a plus.

Bonus

Ideally, you have experience in some, but not necessarily all, of the following areas:

• HMOs, lactoferrin or other milk proteins, infant formula ingredients.
• Products from mammalian cell culture (host cell proteins, residual DNA).
• Proteomics, glycomics or lipidomics; NMR for structural elucidation.
• Specification setting and stability studies for food ingredients.
• Exposure to regulatory dossiers (Novel Food, GRAS) or safety studies.
• QbD and DoE approaches.
• Startup or scale-up environment (Series A to C).

Benefits

Unique opportunity to be one of the first senior hires at an early-stage biotech company, shaping the future of infant nutrition.

Growth opportunities: you will have the opportunity to grow with the company and shape Nūmi's analytical function as it scales.

Access to top-quality facilities, research services and infrastructure.

Competitive salary, ESOP, part health insurance coverage, part transportation and lunch coverage.

⭐ Employee-first mentality, we prioritize the well-being of our team members, both in terms of their mental and physical health.

Recruitment process

• Initial skills matching.
• First interview with our cofounder and CTO Eugénie.
• A technical case study: design the characterisation and method development plan for one of our ingredients.
• A last interview on-site to meet our cofounder and CEO Eden, part of the team and visit the labs.
• 2 to 3 reference calls.

Nūmi is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. We welcome applications from people from all walks of life.