Job Description

Job Title: RESEARCH SCIENTIST - CHEMISTRY GROUP
Location: Zurich - Switzerland
Department: Others

About us

Philogen is a Swiss-Italian integrated biotechnology company founded in 1996, dedicated to developing innovative biopharmaceuticals for cancer therapy (http://www.philogen.com). Philochem AG is the discovery R&D center of the Philogen Group located in Otelfingen (Zurich, Switzerland). Promising preclinical candidates developed at Philochem are subsequently produced at Philogen's authorized Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facilities in Siena (Italy). The Company currently sponsors and coordinates Phase I, II and III prospective clinical trials in Europe and in the United States. Despite the focus on cancer research, the company is also active in discovering innovative therapies for inflammatory conditions.



We seek an enthusiastic Research Scientist to join our Chemistry drug discovery team at Philochem AG. Our focus is the discovery of small molecules against targets of pharmaceutical interest. You will apply DNA-encoded chemical libraries to identify new hits, followed by the design, synthesis, and purification of small molecules using standard and advanced organic synthetic procedures. You will also perform hit validation activities (i.e., Fluorescence polarisation, Biacore, small molecule ELISA and/or enzymatic assays) to evaluate the biological activity of the synthesised compounds. You will then proceed with the most promising hits to test in vitro (cellular assays) and in vivo assays (e.g., in murine models of cancer).



These activities will be carried out in Zurich laboratories in collaboration with a European University. You will be trained to:


Design, plan and implement scientific projects related to the R&D drug discovery program associated with our DNA-Encoded Chemical Library (DECL) Technology and/or medicinal chemistry for the development of Small Molecule Therapeutics. Give scientific presentations. Write scientific articles and publish on peer-reviewed scientific journals. Collaborate with the Intellectual Property team to patent-protect your discoveries. Collaborate with the Business Development unit to seek for industrial collaborations in the field of targeted Small Molecule Therapeutics and DELs.

Minimum requirements

PhD in chemistry, medicinal chemistry, or related disciplines. Experience in synthesis (small organic ligands and/or peptide chemistry; bioconjugation chemistry is considered as a plus) and characterisation of organic compounds. Experience with modern analytic techniques (HPLC, LC-MS) and interpretation of results obtained by spectroscopic techniques (NMR). Good knowledge of data analysis and editing Software (i.e., Excel, Word, Power point, Prism, R, MatLab, Illustrator). Experience in performing literature searches using chemistry databases (PubMed, SciFinder, Reaxys) and in applying the results to solve synthetic challenges in the lab. Fluency in oral and written English.

Applications need to include the candidate's CV, a letter of motivation and 2 reference letters.



If you are interested, please send your application to jobopportunities@philogen.com


Interested candidates are kindly asked to send their Curriculum Vitae to the following e-mail address jobopportunities@philogen.it, specifying the job position of interest authorizing the process of personal data under Italian Legislative Decree 196/03 and General Data Protection EU Regulation (2016/679).