Associate Director, Computational Chemistry

Role Summary

Associate Director, Computational Chemistry leading a multidisciplinary team to provide computational expertise that advances drug discovery programs. Responsible for steering computational chemistry efforts across research sites, implementing innovative methodologies and tools to drive project progression in small molecule drug discovery. Focused on delivering impactful computational strategies to inform design, potency, and ADME/Tox outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Demonstrate expert understanding of computational chemistry principles and their application within a multidisciplinary drug discovery environment.
• Identify, develop, validate, and implement innovative computational approaches that improve research productivity and success.
• Provide crucial technical knowledge and input to project teams to drive decision-making in drug discovery projects.
• Build and develop a strong team of Computational Chemists to high productivity levels.

Qualifications

• PhD degree in a scientific discipline with 7+ years of Industry (pharma/biotech) drug discovery experience required
• Expertise in a variety of computational tools and methodologies including docking, virtual screening, molecular dynamics, free energy perturbation, homology modeling, quantum mechanics, pharmacophore elucidation, data mining, machine learning, cheminformatics, clustering, similarity & diversity analysis.
• Significant industry experience contributing as Computational Chemist on drug discovery projects.
• Strong impact in progressing discovery projects from hits to clinical leads.
• Extensive knowledge & experience in using a variety of tools for Hit ID.
• Provide project teams with computational strategies to inform, influence, and prioritize compound designs for potency/selectivity and improve ADME/Tox endpoints.
• Ability to effectively integrate emerging generative chemistry methods and other modern machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) applications in small molecule drug discovery.
• Proficiency with state-of-the-art Computational Chemistry software.
• Leadership experience: identifies, plans and executes novel scientific projects and lead platform initiatives. Supervisory experience strongly preferred.

Skills

• Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication to support multidisciplinary drug discovery teams.
• Strategic thinking to inform project direction and resource allocation.
• Adaptability to integrate new technologies and methodologies into ongoing programs.

Education

• PhD degree in a scientific discipline with 7+ years of Industry (pharma/biotech) drug discovery experience required

Additional Requirements

• The position will be based in Cambridge, MA. This position is currently classified as “hybrid” by Takeda’s Hybrid and Remote Work policy