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Head of Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Design, London

London 💼 Full-time🗓 2026-08-27 → 2026-09-27

Core

Lead a team of ~25 Medicinal Chemists to deliver the London Drug Design portfolio, guiding projects from Hit Identification through to Lead Optimisation and Clinical Candidate Nomination using AI-driven drug design.

Role type

Senior IC/Manager Head of Medicinal Chemistry

Builds

Novel drug molecules and clinical candidates

Domain

Pharmaceutical drug discovery, Medicinal Chemistry, Artificial Intelligence

Deliverable

production ML models | product features

Required skills

Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Discovery Project Leadership, Hit Identification, Lead Optimisation, DMPK, CRO Management, Team Management, Strategic Planning

Preferred skills

Fragment-based drug design, Structure-based drug design, Managing through other managers

Technologies

AI/ML platforms for drug design

Responsibilities

Provide scientific leadership and strategic direction for the Medicinal Chemistry team; Manage and mentor a layered team structure; Champion an AI-first approach in drug design; Collaborate with Computational Drug Design, Biology, and Pre-Clinical teams; Represent the company externally and manage CRO resources; Optimize drug discovery workflows.

Seniority

Senior, hands-on IC with management responsibilities

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