Scientist Synthesis Automation

At Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections,  where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters.

In Roche’s Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development organization (pRED), we make transformative medicines for patients in order to tackle some of the world’s toughest unmet healthcare needs. At pRED, we are united by our mission to transform science into medicines. Together, we create a culture defined by curiosity, responsibility, and humility, where our talented people are empowered and inspired to bring forward extraordinary life-changing innovation at speed.

Therapeutic Modality (TMo) organization, accountable for translating disease biology into high-quality drug candidates across small molecules, large molecules, oligonucleotides, and genomic medicines. By integrating deep modality expertise with cross-disciplinary collaboration, TMo drives innovation within and across platforms to enable differentiated, sustainable therapeutic impact.

The Medicinal Chemistry Team in Pharma Research and Early Development, located in Basel, is part of Small Molecule Research. We are a community of drug hunters with expertise in synthesis, design and purification, with a responsibility to convert hypotheses into innovative small molecules for treating diseases of high unmet medical need, closely collaborating with our broader therapeutic areas and functions. In your role, you will be working on accelerating compound synthesis through automation and digitalization as part of the Dolphin team. You will be focusing on expanding and executing synthetic technologies (e.g., parallel chemistry and  late-stage functionalization). 

In your role as a Scientist within Medicinal Chemistry, you will be working on accelerating compound synthesis through automation and digitalization as part of the Dolphin team. You will be focusing on expanding and executing synthetic technologies (e.g., parallel chemistry and late-stage functionalization). This requires the introduction of new synthetic methodologies and techniques, including reaction miniaturization, photochemical transformations, small-scale purification and analytical methodology development. Thereby you will also contribute to generating high-quality reaction datasets for machine learning applications.

• You devise and implement state-of-the-art scientific research by conducting laboratory experiments. By designing, planning and executing multi-step organic synthesis and purification of high-quality target molecules for biological screening you maintain a high level of productivity in the laboratory setting.

• You predominantly design and run high-throughput experiments on a miniaturized scale using automation equipment. Thereby you continuously implement new methodologies and innovative technologies to expand the current capabilities.

• You propose and implement innovative and pragmatic solutions to synthetic and technical problems.

• You closely collaborate with project teams to influence and guide the opportunities of late-stage functionalization, library synthesis, and other digital and/or automation applications.

• You work on cutting-edge innovation at the crossroads of automation, digitalization, medicinal chemistry and compound synthesis.

• You coordinate an internal team and manage CRO teams in Europe and China.

• You serve as a contact point for parallel synthesis between sites in Basel, Shanghai and San Francisco. 

You possess a very strong background in synthetic organic chemistry and laboratory digitalization to accelerate the synthesis of chemical matter for Medicinal Chemistry, ideally with a PhD in Synthetic Organic Chemistry with at least four years of industry experience. In particular:

• You have expertise in automation technology, including solid dosing and liquid handling, integrated with analytical and purification methodologies.

• You have a strong background in synthetic methodology development and hands-on laboratory experimentation in small molecule synthesis.

• You have experience in assessing and implementing digitalization and automation solutions in chemical laboratories.

• You understand machine learning concepts for reaction prediction and have experience in collecting reaction datasets.

• You have experience in applying parallel medicinal chemistry approaches to solve medicinal chemistry problems. 

• You have experience in cross-functional and international relationship building within a large discovery organization including stakeholder management and academic collaborations.

• You have demonstrated agile distribution and prioritization of work packages between internal and CRO-based teams

• You have excellent communication and presentation skills, along with strong interpersonal abilities with a track record of leading matrix teams without positional authority.

At Roche, we aim high to deliver life-changing healthcare solutions. If you’re ready to make a meaningful impact on patients and healthcare systems worldwide, this is the place for you.

A healthier future drives us to innovate. Together, more than 100’000 employees across the globe are dedicated to advance science, ensuring everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Our efforts result in more than 26 million people treated with our medicines and over 30 billion tests conducted using our Diagnostics products. We empower each other to explore new possibilities, foster creativity, and keep our ambitions high, so we can deliver life-changing healthcare solutions that make a global impact.

Let’s build a healthier future, together.

Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer.