Sosei Heptares is a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company focused on bringing life-changing medicines based on world-class science to patients globally. Our vision is to become one of Japan’s global biopharmaceutical champions.

Our global business combines our world-leading GPCR-targeted StaR® technology, structure-based drug design and early development capabilities in the UK with a highly experienced clinical development capability and a commercial operation in Japan.

We are leveraging these capabilities to generate and advance a broad and deep pipeline of novel medicines across multiple therapeutic areas, including neurology, immunology, gastroenterology and inflammatory diseases. We intend to develop these opportunities for patients in Japan and globally both internally and through our partnerships with global biopharmaceutical companies and emerging technology companies.

Sosei Heptares operates from key locations in Tokyo and Osaka (Japan), London and Cambridge (UK) and Seoul (South Korea).

For more information, please visit https://soseiheptares.com/. LinkedIn: @soseiheptaresco | Twitter: @soseiheptaresco | YouTube: @soseiheptaresco

We are growing our Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) and AI/ML capabilities, by extending our Computational Chemistry team with the addition of a structure-based drug design experienced computational chemist.

This is an exciting and exceptional opportunity to participate in cutting-edge science using unique structural data whilst making significant contributions to the industry-leading Drug Discovery R&D. The Computational Chemistry team uses state-of-the-art CADD techniques to support and drive discovery projects from early exploratory stage to clinical candidate stage working closely with chemistry, pharmacology, biophysics and structural biology teams. The team is actively involved in Sosei Heptares internal and partnered drug discovery projects, and with SBDD and AI collaborations, providing significant opportunities for scientific and leadership growth to contribute to advancing and leading drug discovery projects within multi-disciplinary teams.

Responsibilities

As member of the Computational Chemistry team, you:

· Contribute to multidisciplinary GPCR SBDD projects by applying a broad set of CADD approaches to support and creatively contribute to data-driven molecular design and drug discovery/medicinal chemistry efforts.

· Develop and apply customised CADD tools, workflows and models to extract, integrate, analyse and visualise complex chemical, structural, pharmacological and ADMET data within the context of structure-based drug discovery.

· Play an active role in new initiatives, such as:

- Structural GPCRome and chemogenomics guided virtual ligand screening

- GPCR SBDD optimized alchemical relative binding free energy approaches

- Development of new computational CADD software via external collaborations

- Generative models for GPCR structure-based AI molecular design

- Structural bioinformatics and StaR® data driven GPCR protein engineering

- Structure-based optimization of GPCR StaR® enabled DNA-Encoded Library screening hits

Please apply if you feel passionate about joining our team where scientific excellence and passion combine in a friendly fun environment to impact drug discovery projects and create/customise new cutting-edge approaches.

· PhD or equivalent experience in CADD/computational chemistry or a related discipline

· Strong background in molecular recognition and the structural and physicochemical property determinants of small molecule binding to proteins

· CADD/Computational chemistry experience within a collaborative multi-disciplinary research environment, working with medicinal chemists

· Working knowledge and hands-on experience with CADD software packages such as the Schrödinger suite

· Experience in using CADD approaches to investigate structural protein-ligand interactions, including molecular docking

· Experience or knowledge of CADD tools to solve problems such as similarity searching, matched pair analysis, clustering, QSAR modelling, visualisation of structure-activity relationships and virtual library enumeration.

· Strong coding skills in Python and familiarity with common data science packages

· Advanced analytical and critical problem-solving skills, combined with scientific creativity and a proactive, positive can-do attitude

· Strong team player with an inclusive, pro-active and positive can-do mindset that is willing to listen, learn and share with/from others.

· Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills: you will need to be able to communicate effectively with team members having diverse professional backgrounds.

. Expertise/willingness to drive and implement improved processes in structure-based GPCR ligand design, including structural modeling of GPCR-ligand complexes.

What’s in it for you?

· State-of-the-art R&D centre located in the heart of the Cambridge science cluster

· Competitive compensation package including discretionary cash bonuses

· Eligible for grants of Restricted Stock Units in Sosei Group Corporation

· 25 days annual leave in addition to public holidays plus the option to purchase an additional 5 days each year

· Employer contribution to pension

· Private Medical Insurance for employees and family and a cash plan for dental and optical reimbursement

· Health and wellbeing benefits including a subsidised individual gym membership

· Income protection to cover long term absences due to ill health

· Group Death in Service equal to 4x basic annual salary

Working at Sosei Heptares

The Sosei Heptares R&D centre is a modern, state-of-the-art centre located within easy shuttle reach of Cambridge and Whittlesford Parkway train stations. We offer a collaborative, diverse and inclusive working environment that considers your individual needs and believes in maintaining a sustainable work-life balance. You will be welcomed by a team of colleagues with decades of accumulated experience in their areas of expertise, happy to help you develop your own skills in a highly collaborative environment and who are keen to provide guidance and support in your personal and career development plans.

Our Mission, Vision and Values

Our mission is to make life-changing medicines using world-leading science, to achieve our vision of becoming one of Japan’s global biopharmaceutical champions.

We are guided by three fundamental values.

· Limitless Compassion

· Unswerving passion

· Continuous self-innovation

These unchanging set of core values that serves as a guide across all our activities

Join us!

The successful candidate will be employed by Heptares Therapeutics Ltd, a UK wholly owned subsidiary of Sosei Group Corporation.

Sosei Heptares is committed to building a diverse and ambitious workforce, and to promoting equal opportunities in employment. We recognize that diverse and inclusive teams build a stronger and more innovative company. Therefore, all qualified applicants will be considered for employment: we do not discriminate based on age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, or any other classification prescribed by law.

Applications should include a CV and covering letter, providing a short description of the background of your interest in the role, and apply via our on-line jobs’ portal: https://bit.ly/3v7NJh0 in pdf format, quoting reference number 2023-09 Computational Chemist. The closing date for applications is 6th November 2023.

C.K Group are our partnered agency on this role.