Computational Chemist/Chemoinformatician (Sosei Heptares, Cambridge, UK)

SoseiHeptares Cambridge United Kingdom
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Company Description

Sosei Heptares (the corporate brand of Sosei Group Corporation) is a research-focused biotechnology group, publicly listed in Japan (TSE: 4565) and with sites in Tokyo, London and Cambridge (UK).

Our mission is to make a significant contribution to improving the quality of life and health of people around the world. To achieve this, we will discover, design and develop the most innovative and effective medicines for patients worldwide, through our world-leading patent-protected technology and platform.

Our primary focus is the discovery, design and development of new medicines originating from its proprietary G Protein-Coupled Receptor (GPCR) targeted StaR® technology and Structure Based Drug Design (SBDD) platform capabilities. The company is advancing a broad and deep pipeline of partnered and in-house drug candidates in multiple therapeutic areas including neurology, immuno-oncology, gastroenterology, inflammation and other rare/specialty diseases. Its leading clinical programs include partnered candidates aimed at the symptomatic treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (with Allergan) and next generation immuno-oncology approaches to treat cancer (with AstraZeneca). Our additional partners and collaborators include Novartis, Pfizer, Daiichi-Sankyo, PeptiDream, Kymab and MorphoSys.

Sosei Heptares has approximately 145 employees based at its new R&D research facility at Granta Park. The size of the company ensures a transparent linkage between all activities from early discovery through to clinical development.

Position

We are seeking a highly motivated and skilled Computational Chemist/Cheminformatician with experience in Computer-Aided Drug Design to join the Computational Chemistry team to assist Sosei Heptares in its drug discovery programs. This is an exceptional opportunity to participate in cutting-edge science using unique structural data whilst helping the growth and success of an industry-leading drug discovery company.

The computational chemist/cheminformatician will work with our chemistry, pharmacology, biophysics and structural biology teams, and,

  • Contribute to GPCR drug discovery projects by applying a broad set of computational chemistry approaches and developing structural protein-ligand interaction hypotheses to support data-driven medicinal chemistry efforts.
  • Develop, customise and apply cheminformatics and computational medicinal chemistry tools and workflows to extract, integrate, analyse and visualise complex chemical, structural, pharmacological and ADMET data within the context of structure-based drug discovery.
  • Perform and facilitate database administration and curation of Sosei Heptares’ databases and contribute to the development, testing and maintenance of our cheminformatics toolkits (shared responsibility with other members of the Computational Chemistry team).

Requirements

Our preferred candidate will have the following profile:

  • Ph.D. or equivalent experience in computational chemistry, cheminformatics or a related discipline.
  • Experience within a collaborative, multi-disciplinary, pharmaceutical, biotech and/or scientific cheminformatics software development environment with a track record of scientific achievements and contributions.
  • Demonstrable experience in maintaining, mining, integrating and visualising data from a number of relational databases of chemical, structural and pharmacological information.
  • Skilled in cheminformatics/computational chemistry/CADD approaches and strong familiarity with a wide range of current computational chemistry software suites for ligand-based and protein structure-based drug design.
  • Proficiency in Python scientific programming language and/or scientific workflow systems (KNIME, Pipeline Pilot).
  • Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills: you will need to be able to communicate effectively with team members having diverse professional backgrounds.
  • Strong team player with an inclusive, pro-active and positive can-do mindset that is willing to listen and learn from others.

Other information

Applicants must be able to demonstrate proof of the right to work in the United Kingdom.

We offer a competitive salary and benefits package commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Heptares is an equal opportunities employer.

Applications should include a covering letter, providing a short description of the background to their interest in the role, with curriculum vitae including the names and contact details for two referees. Please apply through our on-line jobs portal with your application in pdf format, quoting reference number: 2020­1CC. The closing date for applications is 22nd March 2020.

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