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Principal Safety Pharmacologist
The Company
BenevolentAI unites technology with human intelligence to re-engineer drug discovery and deliver life-changing medicines. We have developed the Benevolent Platform®, a drug discovery platform built on powerful data foundations with state of the art machine learning and AI technology. Our technology empowers scientists to decipher the vast and complex code underlying human biology, find new ways to treat disease and personalise medicines to patients. Benevolent has active in-house R&D drug programmes in disease areas such as neurodegeneration, immunology, oncology and inflammation and has research and commercial collaborations with leading pharmaceutical and research organisations. The company is headquartered in London with a research facility in Cambridge (UK) and a further office in New York.
Who we are
We are an eclectic bunch at Benevolent, united by our belief that innovative thinking and purposeful technology can truly change outcomes for the better. Our mission is to re-engineer drug discovery and deliver life-changing medicines for patients in need and we do this by applying AI, machine learning and other advanced technologies to reinvent the ways drugs are discovered and developed. We strive to bring together unique skills and perspectives across biology, chemistry, engineering, AI research, informatics, precision medicine and drug discovery.
The Role
Determination of the potential safety risk/benefits of newly identified targets and AIchemopt compounds being progressed by BenevolentAI (BAI) is of paramount importance. A new role of safety pharmacology/science expert is required to provide significant support to our growing portfolio of small molecule drug discovery programs and disease deployments. The safety pharmacologist will work across multiple small molecule based drug discovery and disease target identification/validation programs, being responsible for identifying potential toxicology/safety risks, for developing and implementing safety/toxicology risk mitigation strategies and studies to address these risks.
This role can be based from either Cambridge or London, depending on your preference.
Primary Responsibilities
- Coordinate with key stakeholders, e.g. small molecule drug discovery core teams, target identification leads, the discovery enabling team, project management and external CROs, to ensure that safety strategies/studies are developed/implemented within the expected timelines for multiple projects and deployments.
- Working within multiple small molecule drug discovery projects, develop and implement safety strategies and studies to understand the potential toxicology risks associated with key BAI compounds.
- Working within multiple small molecule drug discovery projects, develop and implement risk mitigation strategies to facilitate compound progression through the pipeline or such that unsafe compounds can attrite earlier.
- Provide detailed safety risk assessments of validated targets, contributing to decision making regarding progression or not into the small molecule drug discovery portfolio.
- Provide forward looking strategies for validated targets entering the small molecule drug discovery portfolio that will address the potential target safety risks identified in emergent compounds at the appropriate time for lead optimization and/or candidate selection milestones.
- Provide top level guidance to leadership on adverse event profiles of and tolerability to existing medications for diseases under consideration for analysis with BAI’s target identification platform.
- Provide safety pharmacology interpretation/guidance/documentation for key internal project reviews, investor erooms, and investigator brochures (for programs that are advancing to the clinic).
Additional Responsibilities
- Identify areas for improvement in BAI technology assessment of safety risks associated with emerging targets/compounds
- As the role evolves the recruitment and leadership of a small safety pharmacology team may be required
We are looking for someone with
- 3+ years of extensive experience of safety assessment across multiple targets classes, from early target identification (TID) right through to candidate nomination in small, medium or large pharma/biotech.
- Proven ability to multitask in organising, coordinating and interpreting multiple safety studies across different projects at the same time.
- Working knowledge of the best CROs for performing safety studies.
- Working knowledge of appropriate data sources for target safety assessments.
- Working knowledge of regulatory requirements as they pertain to preclinical safety assessment of small molecules inclusive of GLP and non-GLP studies.
- A good knowledge of other aspects of drug discovery (e.g. DMPK, medicinal chemistry) as they pertain to safety pharmacology.
Nice to have but optional
- Experience of safety assessment for all target classes in multiple therapeutic areas from TID to compound preclinical development in small, medium and large organisations
- A PhD is desirable but not essential if significant experience of working in safety pharmacology is indicated (+ 5 years)
Together, we envision a world in which no disease goes untreated. If you are benevolent, curious, want to tackle real world problems and are willing to embrace new ideas, hit that ‘apply’ button and join us.
Important Note
It has come to our attention that unfortunately fraudsters have been falsely offering jobs and set-up fake interviews under the guise of being a Benevolent recruiter. We therefore advise you to be very stringent about who is reaching out to you. Any enquiry from our team will only be made via the email careers@benevolent.ai or an email from this domain @benevolent.ai. Please flag any suspicious contact request to hello@benevolent.ai
