Sr. Principal Scientist, Medicinal chemistry

Sr Principal Scientist –Medicinal Chemistry, Beerse, Belgium

Janssen Research & Development seeks to bring innovative and effective treatments in six therapeutic areas: neuroscience, cardiovascular diseases and metabolism, infectious diseases, immunology, oncology and pulmonary hypertension. In these areas, Janssen aims to address and solve unmet medical needs through the development of small and large molecules, as well as vaccines. The Janssen campus in Beerse (Belgium) has a unique ecosystem covering the complete drug development life cycle, with all capabilities from basic science to market access on one campus. The integrated environment of our campus gives our people the chance to experience many different aspects of drug development throughout their career. It has a successful track record of over sixty years of drug discovery and development and is one of the most important innovation engines of the Janssen group worldwide.

Together with colleagues from the research sites in Val De Reuil (France) and Toledo (Spain) the Beerse medicinal chemistry group focusses mainly on developing innovative small molecule therapeutics to treat diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, various types of cancers and infectious diseases like Hepatitis B, influenza etc. In this endeavor, the chemistry teams work closely together with colleagues from the associated Biology teams and with several internal and external partners aiming to progress the most innovative science and gain access to the latest state-of-the-art technologies and expertise. To support its research activities in the above-mentioned disease areas, the Medicinal Chemistry team is seeking to recruit new scientists into medicinal chemistry research positions in Beerse.

POSITION SUMMARY

The work of the Beerse Medicinal Chemistry teams involves the design and synthesis of novel compounds as potential drug candidates, as part of Hit Generation, Hit-to-Lead and Lead Optimization programs. The work will involve designing and executing challenging multi-step organic synthesis, compound purification and structure determination, maintaining state-of-the art scientific knowledge as well as originating and defending novel ideas in new and on-going projects. The position will also offer the opportunity to examine and interpret pharmacological data as part of building Structure-Activity Relationships (SAR) and to optimize drug-like properties towards identifying high quality drug candidates. Additional responsibilities will include presenting project results at various project meetings and portfolio stage gate reviews, contributing towards the development of new research projects collaborating with other scientific disciplines in the broader discovery organization and working with external chemistry partners, and developing talent.

• Independently plan and execute multi-step synthesis of complex target molecules adhering to Janssen’s high standards for compound quality, data integrity and health & safety.

• Design of new drug candidates, based on the critical interpretation of pharmacological, pharmacokinetic and safety data.

• Present progress at project meetings and to stage gate reviews and governance committees.

• Interact effectively with other discovery partners and play a prominent role to the scientific decision making necessary to enable portfolio priorities and meet project goals.

• Where appropriate, contribute to establishing and prosecuting high impact collaborations with external partners, covering both synthetic and medicinal chemistry projects.

• Develop and supervise more junior staff where applicable.

•Takes leadership in the writing of patent applications and scientific publications in peer reviewed high impact factor journals.

•Keep abreast of the emerging scientific literature with respect to medicinal chemistry and synthetic organic chemistry.