Synthetic Organic Chemist - Medicinal Chemistry at Planet Group Connecticut

We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated individual with a strong background in synthetic organic chemistry to join our synthetic chemistry group in the pursuit of novel small molecules. You will engage with the medicinal chemistry group and with external CRO collaborators to prepare and characterize druglike molecules with suitable potency, selectivity, pharmacokinetics, and efficacy to enter human clinical trials.

You will design efficient routes to final compounds and intermediates on milligram to multi-gram scale. You will work in a dynamic, multi-functional environment, and your work will be critical to achieving aggressive project goals. You will also contribute to writing reports, publications, and patents. Ultimately, you will contribute to the company mission to impact patients with severe cancers.
This position is based in our South San Francisco headquarter offices and required to be onsite four days per week per our company policy.

• M.S. or Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry with 1+ years of biotechnology or pharmaceutical industry experience within a chemistry department
• Excellent scientific expertise in organic synthesis, conversant with the current literature and with modern synthetic reactions and methods
• Ability to design robust, multi-step synthetic sequences that allow for divergence at late stages
• Ability to apply strong problem-solving skills and creativity to productively troubleshoot and optimize challenging reactions with a high level of independence
• Ability to run reactions in parallel to deliver final compounds in batches
• Ability to work on medium scale to efficiently prepare key intermediates
• Ability to purify and characterize chemical intermediates and final compounds with modern characterization techniques (NMR, LCMS, etc)
• Ability to maintain high-quality records in e-notebooks with the appropriate experimental details and characterization data for publications and patent filings
• Ability to work well in teams, exchange information clearly in real time, and bring a scientific curiosity and excitement to the department
• Excellent communication skills and able to present the rationale, key data, issues and accomplishments to other members of the department and to CROs
• Ability to interface with CRO chemists and guide synthetic activities to high efficiency and productivity