Director, Medicinal Chemistry

Lead High-Impact Drug Discovery Programmes

Join an innovative, clinical-stage biotechnology company to play a key leadership role within its discovery organisation. This position offers the opportunity to influence R&D strategy while remaining close to the science, leading multidisciplinary drug discovery programmes from hit identification and lead optimisation through to development candidate selection.

Primary Responsibilities

• Lead medicinal chemistry programmes from hit identification through lead optimisation and candidate selection.
• Develop medicinal chemistry and drug-design strategies across multiple discovery programmes.
• Drive structure-activity relationship (SAR) and multi-parameter optimisation strategies.
• Integrate potency, selectivity, physicochemical properties, ADME, PK, pharmacology and toxicology data into compound-design decisions.
• Manage and mentor medicinal chemistry scientists.
• Collaborate closely with DMPK, biology, pharmacology, toxicology, computational chemistry and structural biology teams.
• Lead and manage external chemistry programmes with CRO and research partners.
• Evaluate programme data and communicate recommendations to senior scientific leadership.
• Contribute to intellectual property strategy and scientific innovation.

Skills & Requirements

• PhD in Medicinal Chemistry, Synthetic Organic Chemistry or a closely related discipline.
• 10+ years of experience within biotechnology or pharmaceutical drug discovery.
• Extensive experience in medicinal chemistry, drug design and synthetic organic chemistry.
• Demonstrated success progressing discovery programmes through hit-to-lead, lead optimisation and development candidate nomination.
• Strong understanding of SAR, DMPK, ADME/PK, pharmacology and toxicology.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary drug discovery teams and mentoring scientists.
• Experience managing outsourced medicinal chemistry activities and external CRO partners.
• Strong scientific communication and stakeholder-management skills.
• Experience with peptide therapeutics, macrocycles or complex drug modalities would be advantageous.
• Experience supporting compounds progressing toward IND-enabling studies or first-in-human development would be highly desirable.

Compensation

$200,000 to $250,000 per annum.