"Alerted.org

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

Lilly’s newly created Early Molecule Discovery team is responsible for small molecule Hit-ID and Hit-to-Lead prosecution through the judicious and creative application of best in class and novel approaches applied to portfolio targets. We seek a medicinal chemist with a demonstrated ability to successfully apply medicinal chemistry principles and _in silico_ technologies (structure-based, model-based, computer-assisted drug design) to drive the discovery of quality Lead molecules against hard-to-drug therapeutic targets.

The candidate will be a key member of a collaborative and fast-paced cross-functional drug discovery team. This is a lead from the bench role, we therefore seek a hands-on candidate who dives deep in data and can deftly leverage fragment-, ligand- and structure-based drug design approaches to impact the creative and timely design and elaboration of Hit towards Lead. The candidate will be leading internal and/or external medicinal chemists to test multiple hypothesis in parallel to improve potency, efficacy, selectivity and ADMET properties in Hit-to-Lead SAR campaigns.

The candidate will be highly collaborative and foster seamless collaborations with integrated pharmacology, structural biology, computational and medicinal chemistry teams to propose novel hypothesis to improve protein-ligand interaction, creatively design new small molecules, recommend synthetic routes and conduct synthesis to drive accelerated Hit-to-Lead learning cycles. The candidate will judiciously apply conventional and state-of-the-art synthetic technology to deliver chemical structures that are otherwise hard to access.

The position requires a positive can-do attitude, and excellent interpersonal skills necessary to effectively influence in a cross-functional and fast-paced team environment, and ideally, experience in leading Hit-to-Lead medicinal chemistry projects.

Responsibilities:

+ Optimize Hits to improve potency, selectivity, physicochemical properties and ADMET towards Leads, across multiple target classes and therapeutic areas

+ Utilize state-of-the-art structure-based drug design technologies and partner with colleagues in computational chemistry, structural biology and in vitro pharmacology to characterize protein-ligand interactions and gain insights supporting novel molecular design

+ Design and synthesize novel small molecules to test hypothesis improving protein-ligand interaction

+ Effectively lead internal and/or external chemistry resources to implement design ideas

+ Collaborate with colleagues specialized in novel chemistry development, high-throughput automated synthesis, route optimization and scale-up

+ Keep safety as the top priority, striving to maintain a strong safety culture. Deliver high laboratory synthetic efficiency to direct fast-paced SAR iterations through proposal and execution of synthetic routes

+ Provide scientific leadership and strategic guidance to enable small molecule hit-ID and Hit-to-Lead discovery efforts.

+ Partner cross-functionally to address specific program needs, provide Medicinal Chemistry perspectives and increase overall organizational acuity

+ Collaboratively engage the external scientific community

Basic Qualifications:

+ PhD in Organic Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry or related field with 5+ years relevant research and/or industrial experience; a Masters Science Degree with 8+ years relevant research and/or industry experience; or a Bachelor of Science Degree with 10+ years relevant research and/or industry experience

+ Extensive hand-on experience in designing and synthesizing drug-like molecules using medicinal chemistry knowledge, SAR analysis, x-ray or cryo-EM structures and computer-assisted modeling

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Experiences:

+ Contemporary understanding of protein-ligand binding efficiency, energetics, and how to optimize

+ Lead from bench mindset; Lead by example; Lead by action

+ Sees personal success as part of team success

+ Track record of scientific contributions including peer reviewed publications, presentations, and/or patents

+ Experience managing external synthetic and/or medicinal chemistry teams

+ Experience leading Hit-to-Lead optimization to improve potency, efficacy, selectivity, and ADMET properties

+ Experience or knowledge of new modalities (eg. GPCR agonist, oral peptides, etc.) or related discovery technologies, and biophysical techniques (eg. SPR, ASMS, HDX)

+ Self-driven, hardworking person with a growth mindset

+ Agile and ready to change research priorities as necessary for success

+ Awareness of scientific informatics and data visualization tools (e.g. Spotfire, KNIME, LiveDesign, MOE, PyMOL) to undertake computationally enabled multi-parameter optimization and drug design

+ Excellent oral and written communication skills, ability to engage highly effectively as team player in a multidisciplinary and global environment

Additional Information

Physical Demands/Travel:

+ The physical demands of this job are consistent with a lab environment **.   **

+ There will be less than 5% travel associated with this role.

Work Environment:

+ This position’s work environment is in a Laboratory.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form ( https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation ) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

Lilly is proud to be an EEO Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia Network, Black Employees at Lilly, Chinese Culture Network, Japanese International Leadership Network (JILN), Lilly India Network, Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), PRIDE (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN), Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL), enAble (for people with disabilities). Learn more about all of our groups.

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location. The anticipated wage for this position is

$133,500 - $217,800

Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

\#WeAreLilly