Associate Director, Medicinal Chemistry

Company

Nurix Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of small molecule therapies designed to modulate cellular protein levels as a novel treatment approach for cancer and immune disorders. Leveraging Nurix’s extensive expertise in E3 ligases together with its proprietary DNA-encoded libraries, Nurix has built DELigase, an integrated discovery platform to identify and advance novel drug candidates targeting E3 ligases, a broad class of enzymes that can modulate proteins within the cell. Nurix’s drug discovery approach is to either harness or inhibit the natural function of E3 ligases within the ubiquitin proteasome system to selectively decrease or increase cellular protein levels.

Nurix’s wholly owned pipeline comprises targeted protein degraders of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase, a B-cell signaling protein, and inhibitors of Casitas B-lineage lymphoma proto-oncogene-B, an E3 ligase that regulates T cell activation. Nurix is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Position

The Associate Director, Medicinal Chemistry will lead projects at various stages from hit-to-lead, through clinical candidate nomination. The successful candidate will also lead a group of medicinal chemists and engage in rational structure-based drug discovery enabled by our computational and structural biology group. Specifically, this individual will design novel chemical entities optimized for potency, selectivity, pharmacokinetics and in vivo efficacy. As a member of a dynamic multi-disciplinary team, this person will collaborate with a broad group of scientists within Nurix and with external collaborators. Remote/hybrid work options available.

Responsibilities:

• Leads drug discovery projects from hit confirmation to development candidate selection
• Sets chemistry strategy for projects
• Set chemistry strategy and advances drug discovery programs by collaboratively interacting across functions
• Collaborates closely with other functional departments, such as DEL screening, biochemistry, biophysics, cell biology, in vivo pharmacology, informatics, and CMC
• Guide direction of medicinal chemistry department to ensure continued contribution to Nurix pipeline
• Recruits chemists and supervises them to high levels of productivity, while improving the skills and knowledge of direct reports
• Communicate project plans/priorities/problems to Research management.
• Lead the preparation of patents, reports, and scientific publications.
• Assists in the management of CROs and external partners.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry with 10+ years medicinal chemistry industrial experience in a pharma or biotech setting
• Excellent knowledge of medicinal chemistry principles such as structure-based ligand design, ADME. Working knowledge of project biology and pharmacology.  Able to effectively integrate this knowledge to direct medicinal chemistry programs through phase transitions or series go/no go decisions
• Excellent scientific expertise in organic synthesis, with strong synthetic problem-solving skills and 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).
• Proven leadership capability in cross-functional team setting as a project team leader or co-lead.
• Proven track record of supervising PhD level scientists to high levels of productivity, whilst improving the skills and knowledge of direct reports through mentorship and focused development activities.
• Excellent communication skills and able to present the rationale, key data, issues and accomplishments of the chemistry efforts to internal and external collaborators