Vice President, Head of Medicinal Chemistry

The head of Medicinal Chemistry will:

• Define and execute on the vision and strategy for medicinal chemistry that results in the sustained delivery of high quality, differentiated small molecules
• Build world-class medicinal chemistry capabilities by driving a culture of deep scientific understanding in small molecule design and synthesis.
• Partner with Research and Early Development to build and deliver a tractable small molecule portfolio.
• Define an external strategy and execute on licensing and collaborative opportunities in partnership with Business Development.
• Build a wide network of relevant relationships in academia and industry, and foster the external presentation and publication of our medicinal chemistry work.
• Maintain a dynamic and entrepreneurial environment that fosters diverse views and ideas which leads to hiring, growing, developing, and retaining talent.
• Align resources including the effective allocation of budget, and internal and external FTEs across projects in the portfolio.

The Vice-President of Medicinal Chemistry will report to the head of Biotherapeutics and Medicinal Sciences and will be a member of this Leadership Team.

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES
• Provides in-depth scientific leadership in the design of high-quality, differentiated molecules that make it to and through the clinic to test hypotheses and become medicines.
• Identifies and drives new scientific directions in molecular design, computational chemistry, and synthetic chemistry to build world-class capabilities.
• Brings innovative ideas and approaches which influence the overall drug discovery and development process particularly in new modalities such anti-sense oligonucleotides.
• Partners with other BTMS functions and Research and Early Development to deliver the portfolio via working understanding of DMPK, safety, and the biology of targets.
• Represents the medicinal chemistry organization in governance bodies such as the Discovery Portfolio Alignment Committee (DPAC), partnering with other disciplines on solutions to drug-discovery problems and ensuring project needs are met.
• Responsible for leading a high-performing group with a focus on hiring, growing, developing, and retaining talent.
• Develops and balances both short- and long-term medicinal chemistry strategies, including resource allocation, staffing needs, expenses, and capital budget and implementation plans.
• Defines and identifies external opportunities for investment in partnership with Business Development.

• Minimum of 15 years of relevant experience in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry
• Acknowledged ‘drug hunter’ and leader in medicinal chemistry with an excellent publication track record. Experience in neuroscience medicinal chemistry would be highly

Biogen is looking for an innovative, scientific thought leader to head our Medicinal Chemistry organization. The Vice-President of Medicinal Chemistry will be a high impact position where the successful candidate will play a key role in the design and delivery of our small molecule portfolio.