Job Description: Senior Scientist II/Medicinal Chemistry

• The successful candidate will be responsible for driving medicinal chemistry research during the lead identification and optimization stage as part of a drug discovery team.  Specifically, this individual will design and synthesize novel chemical entities optimized for potency, selectivity, pharmacokinetics, and in vivo efficacy.
• Contribute to evaluation, optimization and assist in management of external chemistry CRO resources
• Manage compound synthesis, SAR interpretation, design with CRO teams to meet lead candidate selection timelines
• Assist in oversight of external medicinal chemistry resource to advance small molecule drug discovery projects to critical decision-making milestones, from lead identification, lead optimization and identification to clinical candidate selection
• Support the development of clinical candidates through designing synthetic routes, optimization of chemical leads through utilization of SAR, structure-based design for potency and selectivity optimization
• Manage and mentor junior level scientists

• Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry with 10-12 years of experience preferably in pharma/biotech
• Successful application of structure-based drug design leading to advanced leads, and/or development candidates. Strong working knowledge of protein-ligand interactions, conformational and structural analysis, experienced in partnering closely with computational chemists through appropriate use of computational tools, models and visualization applications.
• High level of creativity and productivity with strong synthetic problem-solving skills
• Excellent scientific expertise in organic synthesis, conversant with the current literature
• Solid track record of innovation and impact on programs, with direct contributions to company pipelines (including both successful advances and smart terminations).
• Ability to make inventive contributions towards new chemical target structures or templates for programs and employ sound judgment in the evaluation and strategic decision making around early screening or literature hits.
• Excellent knowledge of medicinal chemistry principles with a solid understanding of the basic biology and pharmacology of programs, and the ADME issues. Able to effectively integrate this knowledge and apply the key principles of medicinal chemistry, literature precedent, and drug design to direct medicinal chemistry programs to phase transitions or series go/no go decisions.
• Strong skills in gathering, documenting, and analyzing information from competitive sources such as patents and meetings and using this information to guide program strategy.
• Excellent communication skills and able to present the rationale, key data, issues, and accomplishments of the chemistry efforts to other members of the department.

twoXAR is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.