Senior Director, Medicinal Chemistry

Role Summary

Senior Director, Medicinal Chemistry role based in South San Francisco, CA. The role leads a group of medicinal chemists and drives rational structure-based drug discovery in collaboration with IDEAYA's computational and structural chemistry teams. The position includes managing CRO collaborators in preparing target molecules and leading drug discovery projects. Reports to the Vice President, Medicinal Chemistry.

Responsibilities

• Lead a group of medicinal chemists and oversee rational structure-based drug discovery in collaboration with computational/structural chemistry teams.
• Manage CRO collaborators in the preparation of target molecules and provide leadership for drug discovery projects.
• Collaborate with a broad group of IDEAYA scientists and external collaborators to advance drug discovery programs.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry with 10+ to 15+ years pharmaceutical medicinal chemistry industrial experience
• Expert understanding of medicinal chemistry concepts along with strong working knowledge of protein-ligand interactions, conformational and structural analysis to enable creative solutions to drug discovery issues. A strong track record of using structure-based design is essential.
• Experience in applying molecular modeling methods to structure-based, ligand-based, and fragment-based drug discovery
• Exceptional knowledge of ADME, physicochemical, biochemical and pharmacological principles as applied to drug discovery
• High level of creativity and productivity with strong synthetic problem-solving skills
• Proven leadership capability in cross-functional team setting, either as project team leader or co-lead
• Excellent oral and written communication skills including ability to present the rationale, data, issues and accomplishments of the team
• Ability to work closely with senior management
• Experience managing PhD level reports
• A strong record of delivering portfolio success and driving projects through to the identification of high quality small-molecule drug candidates
• Experienced in partnering closely with other functional areas including: computational chemistry, DMPK, in vivo pharmacology, CMC, etc.
• Excellent awareness of current developments in synthetic and medicinal chemistry, and ability to identify opportunities to advance the science in these fields
• Strong skills in gathering, documenting, and analyzing competitive information from sources such as patents and meetings and using this information to guide program strategy
• Significant operational experience in one of the following disciplines: Analytical Chemistry, Computer Aided Drug Design, Structural Biology, Formulation Sciences, in vitro and/or in vivo ADME
• Strong desire to mentor junior members of the department to increase their medicinal chemistry knowledge and skill set