Senior Director, Medicinal Chemistry Design

Parabilis Medicines is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to creating extraordinary medicines for patients with serious diseases by unlocking biologically important targets long considered undruggable. The company has pioneered a new class of alpha-helical peptides – Helicons™ – capable of modulating intracellular proteins that have historically been beyond the reach of conventional medicines. The company's lead investigational medicine, zolucatetide, is the first and only direct inhibitor of the β-catenin:TCF interaction, a central node in the Wnt/β-catenin pathway that has eluded drug developers for decades. Zolucatetide is being evaluated in the clinic across multiple Wnt/β-catenin-driven diseases, including desmoid tumors, familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) and a range of other solid tumor indications. Beyond zolucatetide, Parabilis is advancing additional Helicon-based programs focused on other challenging targets where we believe our medicines could have life-altering impact.

About the role

Reporting to the Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry Design, this is an exciting opportunity to advance a transformational new modality, Helicons™, including degraders and other induced proximity approaches, with first-in-class and best-in-class programs. We are seeking a creative drug designer with a passion for advancing programs to candidate nomination.

Responsibilities

• Lead drug design teams applying our AI design platform to facilitate rapid SAR decision-making, using state-of-the-art methods in medicinal chemistry and targeted protein degradation.
• Serve as program leader, setting strategy, coordinating cross-functional teams, and driving delivery of development candidates.
• Develop, implement and communicate an integrated medicinal chemistry strategy, working in concert with partners in Synthesis, Data Science, Platform, in vitro Biology, DMPK, Safety and Pharmacology to reach hit-to-lead and lead optimization goals.
• Use hypothesis-based drug design, incorporating in silico methods to address key optimization issues.
• Drive progression of lead molecules to pharmacological proof-of-concept studies and development candidate nomination.
• Collaborate closely with data scientists to evolve machine learning models for acceleration of the Helicon degrader platform.
• Participate in company portfolio and stage-gate reviews. Present to scientific advisory board.
• Collaborate with Lead IP Counsel to formulate intellectual property strategies and draft patent applications.
• Mentor colleagues across functions in medicinal chemistry principles.

Requirements

• Minimum education: PhD in chemistry and 12+ years of industrial experience, or Master's degree and 15+ years of experience
• Demonstrated experience in delivery of drug candidates both as medicinal chemistry lead and program leader
• Experience in optimization of induced proximity modalities, such as protein degraders
• Experience in ADCs or other drug conjugates a plus
• Inquisitive mindset with desire to build understanding of helicons
• Desire to deliver high-quality drug candidates, often for novel biological targets
• Experience in structure-based data analysis and hypothesis-driven drug design
• Collaborative team member with desire to incorporate computational techniques to increase design quality
• Desire and ability to communicate science – from strategy to hypotheses to tactical plans
• Demonstrated ability to utilize AI tools for day-to-day work; baseline proficiency is expected, and advanced or innovative use of AI is a strong plus
• Able to work on-site and attend in-person meetings

Core Values

• Growth-Minded. We're inventing a new class of medicines—one applicable to therapeutic targets that have been dreamt about, but always considered impossible to drug. Our work requires us to be curious, humble and adaptable.
• In(ter)dependent. We are fiercely independent as a leader in defying the limitations of current therapeutic modalities, and interdependent as a team as we work collaboratively to shift drug discovery paradigms and provide patients with better treatment options.
• Patient-focused. We are deeply focused on patient outcomes, and all energy in the company is focused on science as it translates to patient impact.
• All-In. We're All-In on solving some of the hardest scientific challenges and delivering one of the most effective new classes of drugs in history.

Pay

The base salary range for this position is $240,000-$295,000, depending on experience, qualifications, and internal practices. Parabilis's total compensation package also includes an annual target bonus, equity, and a comprehensive suite of competitive benefits designed to support our employees' overall well-being.