Director, Medicinal Chemistry

Job Title: Director, Medicinal Chemistry

Location: Cambridge, UK

Our Mission:

To build a viable, long-lasting health care organization that assumes full responsibility for designing, developing, trial execution and enrollment, regulatory submission and approval, and successful commercialization of patient, physician, caregiver, and societal-friendly medicinal therapy* intended to: improve quality of life, increase potential duration of life, and resolve serious medical healthcare needs. To identify and control promising product candidates based on exceptional scientific development and administrational expertise, develop our products in a rapid, cost-efficient manner, and to engage commercialization and/or development partners when appropriate.

We accomplish this by building a team of world class professional scientists and business administrators that apply their experience and knowledge to this mission. Team Summit exists to pose, strategize, and execute a path forward in medicinal therapeutic health care that places Summit in a well-deserved, top market share, leadership position. Team Summit assumes full responsibility for stimulating continuous expansion of knowledge, ability, capability, and well-being for all involved stakeholders and highly-valued shareholders.

Summit was founded in 2003 and our shares are listed on the Nasdaq Global Market (symbol ‘SMMT’). We are headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and we have additional offices in Oxford, UK, Cambridge, UK, and Menlo Park, California.

Overview Of Role:

We are seeking an Associate Director/Director/Senior Director, Medicinal Chemistry to join our highly motivated and passionate team. The ideal candidate will be a strong team player, leader, and have solid postdoctoral training with a proven track record of success in drug discovery from early lead identification to late-stage lead optimization with different targets as demonstrated by patents and/or publications.

Role And Responsibilities:

• As a project lead, design, discover, coordinate and manage the development of novel oncology drugs into, and through, IND enabling studies.
• Manage, oversee outsourced chemistry resources, creatively troubleshoot synthetic routes with team to ensure quality, accuracy, and timely delivery of molecules for downstream screenings.
• Develop strategies to identify hits/lead molecules, optimize for potency, selectivity, ADME properties using SAR and computational drug design approaches.
• Teamwork with computational chemistry, biology, DMPK in discovery research.
• Liaise with global multi-disciplinary oncology team including clinical development, translational research, biometrics and regulatory functions.
• Project leader for drug discovery programmes.
• Work with internal/external AI/ML and computational chemistry resources to accelerate lead identification.
• Point of contact for multiple internal departments and external CROs.
• Responsible for the technical/scientific content and workflow captured within the preclinical studies.

Experience, Education and Specialized Knowledge and Skills:

• Ph.D. medicinal/organic chemistry or similar with hands-on postdoctoral training and 10+ years industry experience and proven successes in regulated biotech or pharmaceutical companies
• Proven track record in drug discovery and development in oncology with experience in small molecule drug candidate selection, preparation for first-in-human studies and support through clinical development, product registration, and post-marketing research studies.
• Hands-on bench experience with excellent track record of solving complex challenges
• Experience in leading projects and driving programs through preclinical development process to candidate selection
• Experience in working with computational chemistry and modern organic chemistry approaches and principles for molecule design
• Strong experience working in discovery setting with a firm grasp of typical timelines and resources required for each phase of the process
• Strategic thinking and prioritization among preclinical, and clinical phase research projects, to provide timely and relevant nonclinical research support for Terns’ projects, including budgeting, for needed work in support of corporate goals.
• Strong scientific communication skills in a cross-functional setting
• Experienced team player and leader comfortable in a fast-paced, high-growth company
• Collaborative and adept in building cross-functional relationships
• Evidence of "hands-on" experience and expertise
• Highly organized with keen attention to details and a passion to deliver quality results
• Highest levels of professionalism, integrity, values and ethical standards

Our Commitment:

Summit does not accept referrals from employment businesses and/or employment agencies in respect of the vacancies posted on this site. All employment businesses/agencies are required to contact Summit’s human resources department to obtain prior written authorization before referring any candidates to Summit.