Associate Director, R&D - Process Chemistry

Associate Director, R&D - Process Chemistry

Jazz Pharmaceuticals

Sittingbourne, United Kingdom

The Associate Director, R&D – Process Chemistry heads the process research and development team within the Discovery and Medicinal Chemistry group at Kent Science Park, adopting a leadership and technical role and working together with other CMC functions to advance drug candidates from lead optimisation to GLP Tox.

​​Essential Functions

• ​Lead a group of scientists and is accountable for the development activities in the Process Development Team.
• ​Analyse Evaluate medicinal chemistry synthetic procedures to redesign and/or identify scalable processes covering supply of early development activities up to GLP Tox.
• ​Plan, agree, resource and execute the optimization of a synthetic route identifying clear deliverables and milestones in accordance to with the overall molecule project plan.
• ​Identifies intellectual property generation opportunities and drives innovation within the team.
• ​Presents regularly project updates to the department and CMC teams with a clear focus on prioritization and delivery.
• ​Acts as the Drug Substance Lead and SME, working closely with other early CMC functions as including analytical, preformulation, biopharmaceutics Medicinal Chemistry and toxicology.
• ​Promotes a purpose driven team environment, with a focus on safety within the department.
• ​Identifies procedural and technical gaps within the department and drives implementation of optimized procedures.

​Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• ​Relevant pharmaceutical industry experience within a Discovery/Early Development setting with a broad theoretical and practical understanding of early drug development and drug candidate nomination criteria.
• ​Good understanding of the key attributes that make a potential drug suitable for IND-enabling/clinical development.
• ​Scours relevant scientific literature within field and surveys broadly beyond own discipline/field.
• ​Excellent management skills, including planning and resource allocation.
• ​Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively with external partners.
• ​Strong IT skills and an ability to use key software packages to produce, present and analyse data and produce compelling materials for internal and external use
• ​Demonstrated ability to lead projects from inception to completion, coordinating the efforts of a team within budget, timelines and regulatory requirements.
• ​Partner with Pharmaceutical Development on API development approaches to mitigate risk as candidates progress.
• ​Displays the attributes encompassed in Jazz’s values and encourages their development in others.

​Required/Preferred Education and Licenses

• ​MSc/PhD in a chemical or pharmaceutical subject, ideally with postgraduate qualification in chemical synthesis, drug substance development or related discipline.
• ​Knowledge of quality and regulatory standards within the Pharmaceutical Industry in early phases and experience of applying those into drug development projects.
• ​cGxP awareness and experience applying this within an R&D environment.
• ​Will have Ideally has experience with statistical procedures and software, particularly DoE and multivariate analysis.

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