Associate Director - Medicinal Chemistry

About Cerevance

 Cerevance is an emerging Biotech harnessing a novel technology platform to deliver life-changing therapeutics for patients with central nervous system diseases. Cerevance is generating unprecedented human CNS expression data sets, from which novel targets are being identified for innovative drug discovery programs. Based on this approach, we have built a strong pipeline with projects at various development stages, ranging from target validation, hit identification to lead optimization as well as clinial stage.
We are seeking to recruit a motivated scientist for a leadership role in Medicinal Chemistry based in our Cambridge, UK facility. This position is an excellent opportunity for an experienced medicinal chemist who is keen to provide leadership on preclinical projects.

Key responsibilities

In collaboration with  interdiciplinary team members, the individual will drive preclinical projects from hit identification to candidate selection stage. Responsibilities will include the design of novel modulators for targets (across several target classes) and drive the synthetic chemistry efforts by working with external partners/CROs. Further, the individual will likely take on project leadership of at least one advancing program; they will play a critical role in advancing promising compounds to in vitro selectivity, DMPK and efficacy studies in a timely manner, and support the IP strategy.

Requirements

A successful candidate ideally has a PhD. in synthetic/medicinal chemistry and significant experience in small-molecule drug discovery. The candidate will have a proven track record in project leadership and will be able to demonstrate experience in advancing projects to candidate stage. Beyond medicinal chemistry, the candidate should bring good knowledge of neighboring disciplines, in particular DMPK and in vitro pharmacology. Excellent verbal and written communication skills and experience working with CROs will also be essential for this role. Expertise across several target classes on projects for neurological disorders is highly advantageous.

 Importantly, the successful candidate needs to be a team player, demonstrate innovative and proactive thinking and be passionate about drug discovery.