Medicinal Chemistry Project Leader

Chemistry        ·          New Haven, CT        ·       Full time

Arvinas is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leading the way in targeted protein degradation therapeutics. Arvinas is the first company to focus solely on protein degradation and its platform technology is the most advanced in the field. Since its founding in 2013, Arvinas’ PROTAC® Discovery Engine has been driving the most significant breakthroughs in the industry. Arvinas’ pipeline encompasses a range of validated and undruggable targets in oncology, immuno-oncology, and neuroscience. This includes three clinical-stage programs: bavdegalutamide (ARV-110) and ARV-766, which are being developed as potential treatments for men with late-line metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer, and ARV-471, which is being developed as a potential treatment for patients with breast cancer.

#TeamArvinas is made up of more than 350 passionate and curious employees, whose diverse thoughts and perspectives are highly valued. Arvinas employees embrace the freedom to pursue innovation, think creatively, and give back. They are driven by the company’s values and purpose – to improve the well-being of patients and families impacted by the devastating diseases Arvinas is working to treat. It’s an exciting time to be in drug development and it’s an exciting time to be at Arvinas. But don’t just take our word for it – here’s what Arvinas employees are saying. For more information, please visit www.arvinas.com.

Position Summary

This position reports to the Vice President, Medicinal Chemistry and will be located at our headquarters in New Haven, CT. Hybrid work arrangements are available, with 1 – 2 days a week being remote based on work requirements and project needs.

Principal Responsibilities

Key responsibilities of this role include, but are not limited to:

• Responsible for the effective management of assigned therapeutic or platform PROTAC® projects in line with target project profiles and timelines within a team environment
• Responsible for driving hit chemical matter to lead chemical matter in an expeditious fashion. Effective interface with biophysics is to be expected.
• Requires the expeditious molecular and synthetic design of PROTACs and libraries in conjunction with state-of-the-art computational chemistry resources to enable program advancement
• Requires a dynamic interaction with external CRO resources to ensure synthetic and data needs are fulfilled according to agreed timelines and standards
• Requires solicitation and analysis of necessary experimentation/data to allow identification and prioritization of issues, and crisp-decision making within the project environment to meet company, project and personal goals and timelines
• Ensures that key program progression compounds and data are being generated and decision-making based on strong scientific judgment is occurring.
• Responsible for providing considered and focused input across all phases of drug discovery, smoothly collaborates with other functions in drug discovery, and exemplifies leadership, demanding excellence in performance at all levels
• As required to meet goals, personally executes on synthetic routes to pioneer chemistry and address recalcitrant key project molecules and intermediates
• Provides transparent and coherent and focused updates to manager and company executives on request and represents company interests at conferences and in scientific matters to external organizations as needed

Qualifications

• Extensive knowledge of synthetic and medicinal chemistry-related scientific and technological principles to design and execute drug-discovery experiments on a project basis
• Extensive knowledge of hits to leads triage including experience interfacing with biophysical assay scientists
• Manages time and balances work between bench and desk; completes tasks in timely manner
• Manages a group of external scientists
• Maintains accountability for ensuring own goals, those of any direct reports, project team goals, project and company objectives are achieved
• Represents research/project team at high level meetings within the company
• Maintains orderly and timely record of project plans and results in accordance with company policy and legal requirements
• Makes broad scientific contributions that have a positive impact on the research direction of the company
• Writes procedures/protocols and professional/technical reports and writes scientific articles, publications and patents
• A track record of creative contributions to drug design, especially structure-based design, optimizing pharmaceutical & DMPK properties and making critical scientific contributions at the project team level as a chemistry and/or project leader
• Represents the company effectively in scientific matters to external organizations
• Maintains safe working environment for self and others
• A PhD medicinal chemist with extensive track record triaging chemical hits from biochemical and cell based screening platforms. Proven track record of progressing chemical hits to lead matter.  Experience with SpotFire and  other chemo-informatics platforms required.
• A strong patent and publication record evidencing scientific curiosity and strong communication skills
• Proficiency with database mining, graphing and interpretation
• A successful candidate will have an enabling attitude, be a problem solver and have a desire to work in a collaborative manner across all the functional areas

Education

• A PhD medicinal chemist with 15+ years of pharma/biotech-based drug discovery experience, with a track-record of leading/contributing to research projects towards IND-track nomination

Arvinas is proud to offer a competitive package of base and incentive compensation as well as a comprehensive benefits program designed to support the health, wellness and financial security of our employees and their families. Benefits include group medical, vision and dental coverage, group and supplemental life insurance, and much more. To learn more about Arvinas, please visit www.arvinas.com

Arvinas is an Equal Opportunity employer

Please click here to apply.