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Pharmaceutical & Material Sciences is, within the Pharmaceutical Development & Supply (PPDS) organization of the Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson and Johnson, responsible for high-throughput experimentation, preformulation, biopharmaceutics, solid state form selection and understanding, and material selection and qualification.
In Belgium (Beerse) there is a vacancy for a Senior/Principal Scientist Molecular Pharmaceutics. Within this role you will provide expert scientific advice to drive mechanistic understanding of drug delivery.
The overall mission of the position is to work together with a team of experts in molecular design, solid form design and formulation design and provide in silico support to select, develop and understand the behavior of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, functional excipients, and drug formulations in each phase of development. The role is related to the development of synthetic molecules, with a specific focus on oral peptide delivery.

Based on your professional experience and educational background, we have the flexibility to tailor the position's level and responsibilities accordingly.

Job description

• Conduct simulations using modeling techniques such as molecular dynamics to investigate the behavior and interactions of the active pharmaceutical ingredients and functional excipients in drug products and physiological environments.
• Translate scientific insights into molecular and formulation design strategies starting from the early development stage throughout the entire product development lifecycle.
• Troubleshoot fundamental challenges associated with the physicochemical properties of the compound, drug product, as well as excipients.
• Drive innovation in computational flows and approaches to support new drug delivery modalities with focus on the oral delivery of macromolecules.
• Liaise with experimental analytical and formulation scientists to contextualize the relevance of modeling in product development.
• Take part in research collaborations with academic and private organizations and consortia.
• Work in a multidisciplinary team of researchers, internally as well as externally building and maintaining a strong relationship with key stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. or Master’s degree in Physical or Computational Chemistry, Biophysics, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, or a related field with 3+ years of experience focussing on molecular dynamics or computer simulations.
• Proficiency in molecular modeling applications in drug development (e.g. GROMACS, AMBER, DL_POLY and commercial software like Schrodinger, Biovia …) and scripting languages (e.g., bash, Python, R…).
• Experience with working in a High-Performance Computing environment.
• Insights into the broader pharmaceutical product development picture and understanding of biopharmaceutics and physicochemical principles and their impact on molecular and formulation design is considered an advantage.
• Team player, dynamic, creative, innovative and flexible.

Johnson & Johnson is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.
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