Senior Scientist II/Medicinal Chemistry

Job Description: Senior Scientist II/Medicinal Chemistry
Do you want to grow a company that positively impacts the world? At Aria Pharmaceuticals, we discover and develop first-in-class small molecules. We are seeking talented and highly motivated individuals with a strong background in synthetic organic chemistry to join our medicinal chemistry group in the pursuit of developing novel small molecules to treat patients with unmet medical needs. The successful candidate will have a PhD and extensive knowledge and experience in the drug discovery and optimization process, with at least 10 -12 years of experience in identifying NCE. The qualified candidate will be responsible for contributing to the medicinal chemistry scientific excellence, fostering innovation and cross-functional collaboration with both internal and external scientific community.

About us:
Aria Pharmaceuticals (formerly twoXAR Pharmaceuticals) is a preclinical-stage pharmaceutical company discovering and developing novel small molecule therapies for complex and hard-to-treat diseases. Too many patients today are in need of breakthrough treatments across many complicated diseases – they can’t wait. That’s why at Aria, we have redefined the drug discovery approach, saving years in the process and increasing success rates 30 times higher than traditional methods. At Aria, we’ve shown promise across a diverse range of therapeutic areas with the ability to address over 1,000 diseases.

Responsibilities

• The successful candidate will be responsible for driving medicinal chemistry research during the lead identification and optimization stage as part of a drug discovery team. Specifically, this individual will design and synthesize novel chemical entities optimized for potency, selectivity, pharmacokinetics, and in vivo efficacy.
• Contribute to evaluation, optimization and assist in management of external chemistry CRO resources
• Manage compound synthesis, SAR interpretation, design with CRO teams to meet lead candidate selection timelines
• Assist in oversight of external medicinal chemistry resource to advance small molecule drug discovery projects to critical decision-making milestones, from lead identification, lead optimization and identification to clinical candidate selection
• Support the development of clinical candidates through designing synthetic routes, optimization of chemical leads through utilization of SAR, structure-based design for potency and selectivity optimization
• Manage and mentor junior level scientists

Qualifications/Requirements

• Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry with 10-12 years of experience preferably in pharma/biotech
• Successful application of structure-based drug design leading to advanced leads, and/or development candidates. Strong working knowledge of protein-ligand interactions, conformational and structural analysis, experienced in partnering closely with computational chemists through appropriate use of computational tools, models and visualization applications.
• High level of creativity and productivity with strong synthetic problem-solving skills
• Excellent scientific expertise in organic synthesis, conversant with the current literature
• Solid track record of innovation and impact on programs, with direct contributions to company pipelines (including both successful advances and smart terminations).
• Ability to make inventive contributions towards new chemical target structures or templates for programs and employ sound judgment in the evaluation and strategic decision making around early screening or literature hits.
• Excellent knowledge of medicinal chemistry principles with a solid understanding of the basic biology and pharmacology of programs, and the ADME issues. Able to effectively integrate this knowledge and apply the key principles of medicinal chemistry, literature precedent, and drug design to direct medicinal chemistry programs to phase transitions or series go/no go decisions.
• Strong skills in gathering, documenting, and analyzing information from competitive sources such as patents and meetings and using this information to guide program strategy.
• Excellent communication skills and able to present the rationale, key data, issues, and accomplishments of the chemistry efforts to other members of the department.

Aria Pharmaceuticals is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.