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Senior Director / Director, Head of Discovery Biology

Employer
Frontier Medicines
Location
South San Francisco, California, US
Salary
Competitive
Closing date
Oct 20, 2021

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Sector
Academic / Research
Field
Conservation science
Discipline
Biology
Salary Type
Salary
Employment Type
Full time
Frontier Medicines, located in South San Francisco, CA and Boston, MA, is a precision medicine company that has pioneered a powerful discovery and development platform designed to generate medicines against disease-causing proteins previously considered undruggable. We are deploying our technologies in chemoproteomics, covalent drug discovery, and machine learning to develop a pipeline of groundbreaking medicines against the most important drivers of disease.Our lead program targets both the activated and inactive forms of KRASG12C, a validated driver in a number of cancers that until recently has been undruggable.Our pipeline embodies our vision of boldly advancing science to defeat disease, starting with cancer.

Frontier Medicines is seeking a highly motivated individual to fill the Head of Discovery Biology position to lead and build our biophysics and biochemistry capabilities, contribute to both the development of our drug discovery platform and drive delivery of our therapeutic pipeline.The team is focused on the discovery of new medicines to treat cancers and other serious disorders.The successful candidate will implement novel assays and strategies to drive drug discovery projects, enable Frontier Medicines drug discovery platform and provide leadership in drug discovery within project teams.The position will report to the CSO and can be located at either the Boston or South San Francisco site.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Leadership of the discovery biology team to design strategies, perform assays that will drive project medicinal chemistry and deliver key elements of the development candidate project profile.
  • Employ biophysical and biochemical methods enabling mechanistic studies to determine the mode-of-action for lead molecules.
  • Lead and contribute to project teams focused on target selection, target validation, lead generation and lead optimization to enable delivery of novel drug candidates into clinical development.
  • Partner with colleagues in structural biology, protein science, chemical biology, disease biology, medicinal chemistry, and other functional groups to drive project progression.
  • Oversee evolution of discovery biology biophysical and biochemical platform technologies and strategy.
  • Efficiently accomplish project goals on time and budget.
  • Make intellectual contributions to all stages of the drug discovery process and clearly articulate deliverables, progress, and issues to drug discovery teams
  • Effectively communicate with colleagues and stakeholders; create and present research updates and provide strategic input to team/company meetings.
  • Responsible for the group complying with best laboratory safety practices, and maintaining clear, detailed laboratory notebooks.


Qualifications:

  • PhD in biochemistry, biophysics or other relevant degree and 10+ years of relevant experience in the biotech or pharmaceutical industry.
  • Experience in leading drug discovery teams is required.
  • Possess in-depth knowledge of biochemical and biophysical assay design, validation, and application to drug discovery.
  • Experience in a wide array of biophysical and biochemical assay technologies, including NMR, SPR, ITC, DSF, MST, Mass Spec, FP, HTRF, alpha screens, etc. Fragment, and covalent drug discovery a plus.
  • Direct experience in working with and characterizing challenging proteins.
  • General knowledge of signaling pathways, protein homeostasis, and regulation of gene expression.
  • Experience balancing CRO and internal resources to solve problems and drive progress.
  • Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, and the ability to work seamlessly with multiple drug discovery teams to deliver high quality biophysical/biochemical support.
  • Demonstrated track record of success in drug discovery as evidenced by contribution to progression of novel development candidates into the clinic, a significant publication record in journals, patents, and presentations.
  • Strong organizational skills: ability to manage priorities across multiple projects simultaneously.
  • Ability and willingness to learn and adopt emerging technologies to drug discovery process.
  • Legally authorized to work in the US.


by Jobble

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