Computational Chemist

Senior Computational Medicinal Chemist / Digital Drug Hunter – Nordics

Fancy a new scientific challenge — and a move to the Nordics ?

We’re working on a retained search with a well-established pharmaceutical R&D organisation in the Nordics that is looking for a Senior Computational Medicinal Chemist / Digital Drug Hunter to join its drug discovery team.

This is a role for someone who wants to be right at the heart of molecular desig n — not sitting on the sidelines running calculations on request.

You’ll work closely with medicinal chemists and project scientists, using computational chemistry to help shape real design decisions across active small molecule discovery programmes.

The team is particularly interested in scientists who enjoy asking difficult questions, challenging assumptions and using computation to influence where a programme goes next.

What you’ll be doing

You’ll be involved in areas such as:

• Driving molecular design and multi-parameter optimisation strategies
• Working closely with medicinal chemists on SAR, compound prioritisation and design hypotheses
• Applying structure-based and ligand-based drug design approaches
• Running virtual screening and hypothesis-led computational studies
• Exploring binding modes, conformations and structural hypotheses
• Using docking, molecular modelling and data-driven approaches to guide chemistry
• Evaluating predictive and generative models rather than simply accepting their output
• Working alongside specialists in cheminformatics, ML/AI, structural biology and physics-based modelling
• Helping introduce new computational methods when they can genuinely improve project decisions
• Supporting work across emerging small molecule modalities, including PROTACs and molecular glues

You’ll be expected to have an opinion, contribute scientifically and influence medicinal chemistry strategy.

What would make you a good fit?

You’ll probably have:

• A PhD in computational chemistry, medicinal chemistry, cheminformatics, structural biology or a related area
• Several years’ experience working in computational drug discovery
• Strong understanding of medicinal chemistry and multi-parameter optimisation
• Experience with structure-based and ligand-based design
• Hands-on molecular modelling experience, including docking and conformational analysis
• Confidence working with SAR and experimental data
• Programming/data skills using tools such as Python, RDKit, KNIME or similar
• Experience with proximity-inducing modalities such as PROTACs or molecular glue degraders
• The ability to explain computational results clearly to medicinal chemists and multidisciplinary teams

Relocation-

If you’re currently elsewhere in Europe, the UK or further afield and would seriously consider relocating for the right scientific opportunity, relocation support is available.

The Nordics offers a high quality of life, strong scientific infrastructure and a collaborative working culture, and this particular environment is built around low hierarchy, scientific discussion and giving experienced scientists room to influence.

You’ll be joining a team where computational science is expected to shape drug discovery decisions, not simply validate them afterwards.

If you’d like to hear more, send me a message in confidence.

No formal application needed at this stage — I’m happy to have an informal conversation first and talk through the science, team and relocation.