Senior scientist, associate director, medicinal chemistry - lead ID

Senior Scientist  / Associate Director, Medicinal Chemistry - Lead ID
Location: Basel , Switzerland

Monte Rosa Therapeutics (MRT) seeks to recruit an experienced, creative and highly talented synthetic and medicinal chemist who is eager to discover molecular glue degraders (MGDs) that eliminate disease-causing proteins that are considered undruggable.
The Scientist will play a key role in contributing to the advancement of our growing pipeline portfolio and progressing our drug discovery projects from Lead Identification through development candidate nomination and beyond. The successful candidate should have state-of the-art medicinal chemistry expertise in small molecule drug discovery, prior experience collaborating in multi-disciplinary teams, and a passion for advancing projects towards clinical development candidates.

Principal Duties and Key Responsibilities:
 Serve as chemistry project lead for multiple molecular glue degrader target projects.
 Devise and implement medicinal chemistry strategies to advance projects from validated hits through lead optimization to development candidates.
 Contribute to the design of novel, active, and proprietary MGDs. Analyze SAR trends and advance chemical matter applying multi-parameter approaches to optimize activity, ADME and biological effect.
 Apply state-of-the-art medicinal chemistry design principles to MGD discovery.
 Work closely with biology co-lead to advance program objectives.
 Closely follow emerging results of biological testing and ADME characterization to proactively propose new strategies and design new target molecules to improve compound properties.
 Efficiently manage synthetic chemistry teams using our CRO network, by devising efficient synthetic routes to target compounds.
 Contribute medicinal chemistry expertise cross-functionally, providing guidance to biology, pharmacology, DMPK, and toxicology functions.
 Collaborate with external research partners.
 Communicate scientific findings and project updates to senior leadership and governance.
 Summarize and publish research in publications and patents.

Job Requirements:
 PhD in organic / medicinal chemistry or equivalent experience with a track record of accomplishments in small molecule drug discovery
 8-10 years of relevant professional experience in lead generation and optimization chemistry.
 Project leadership experience is a plus but not a must.
 Familiarity with pre-clinical research in drug discovery.
 Deep experience of SAR analysis and design hypothesis generation.
 Excellent grasp of medicinal design chemistry principles, including property-based design, as well as DMPK & physicochemical property optimization strategies.
 Proficiency in complex molecule synthesis and/or synthetic method development experience.
 Effective in working cross-functionally and with cross-site teams.
 High level of proficiency with databases, data analysis and visualization tools (e.g. Spotfire, D360, CDD, Maestro, Pymol).
 Experience of collaborating with CROs is essential.
 Excellent written and oral communication skills in English.
Interested candidates should forward CV and cover letter to careers-Basel@monterosatx.com or apply on line www.monterosatx.com

Monte Rosa Therapeutics (MRT) is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing highly selective molecular glue degrader (MGD) medicines for patients living with serious diseases in the areas of oncology, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, and more. MGDs are small molecule protein degraders that have the potential to treat many diseases that other modalities, including other degraders, cannot. Monte Rosa’s QuEEN™ (Quantitative and Engineered Elimination of Neosubstrates) discovery engine combines AI-guided chemistry, diverse chemical libraries, structural biology, and proteomics to identify degradable protein targets and rationally design MGDs with unprecedented selectivity. The QuEEN discovery engine enables access to a wide-ranging and differentiated target space of well-validated biology across multiple therapeutic areas. Monte Rosa has developed the industry’s leading pipeline of MGDs, which spans oncology, autoimmune and inflammatory disease and beyond, and has a strategic collaboration with Roche to discover and develop MGDs against targets in cancer and neurological diseases previously considered impossible to drug.