Senior / Principal Scientist in Platform Chemistry — Purification & Analysis

Black Swans Exist; København; On-site; DKK 900,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Black Swans Exist in Copenhagen is seeking a Senior/Principal Scientist to build and own the purification and analytical capability at the heart of our discovery platform. The role is hands-on, instrument-facing and on-site in our Copenhagen lab.

You will define the strategy, select technologies, install and commission systems, and ensure data quality feeds AI-driven design systems while collaborating with a growing Platform Chemistry team.

Qualifications

• Hands-on purification and analytical characterization of small molecules or macrocycles.
• Experience specifying, installing and commissioning purification/analytical instrumentation.
• Proven method development for difficult separations with challenging compounds.
• MSc or PhD in chemistry or related field, or equivalent industry depth.
• Ability to work in a small team and lead others as needed.

Responsibilities

• Define strategy for purification and analytical capabilities, select technologies, install and run systems.
• Develop methods for macrocycles and challenging compounds.
• Own analytical standards and data quality feeding AI-driven design systems.
• Integrate purification/analysis with automated synthesis workflows to enable higher throughput.
• Mentor scientists and shape lab capabilities as the team grows.

Skills

Purification

Analytical characterization

Instrument installation

Method development

Automation workflows

Team mentoring

Education

MSc or PhD in chemistry or analytical chemistry

Tools

LC/UV/MS

SFC

Automation systems integration

Job description

Senior / Principal Scientist in Platform Chemistry - Purification & Analysis

Reports to

Head of Platform Chemistry

The essentials, first

This is a full-time, on-site role in our Copenhagen lab. The work is hands-on and instrument-facing and cannot be done remotely. If you are relocating to Denmark, we will support the move.

This is a discovery role, not a GMP or CMC process role. You will not be transferring processes to manufacturing or writing validation packages. Instead, you will build and run the purification and analytical capability that sits at the heart of a fast-moving discovery engine.

About the company

We are representing a fast-growing biotechnology company pioneering a new approach to oral macrocycle drug discovery.

The discovery platform combines automated synthesis, screening and machine learning to design, make and test macrocyclic compounds that are optimized for oral bioavailability.

The ambition is to develop oral medicines that can address biological targets traditionally associated with injectable biologics, while also reaching intracellular targets that conventional therapeutic modalities can struggle to access.

They operate across Copenhagen and Switzerland and are backed by leading international life-science investors and strategic pharmaceutical partners.

The role

As part of our ambition to accelerate and automate macrocyclic synthesis, we are planning a significant expansion of the purification and analysis capabilities in Copenhagen.

They are looking for an experienced scientist who can help define the strategy, select the right technologies and ultimately own the installation, implementation and operation of state-of-the‑art purification and analytical tools.

Purification and analysis are critical parts of our automated discovery platform. They ensure that both the compounds we generate and the data we produce meet the quality required to support rapid drug discovery.

The quality of this data is particularly important because it feeds directly into AI‑driven design systems. Reliable purification, characterization and analytical data help improve the decisions made in subsequent design cycles.

They are preparing to make a significant capital investment in preparative purification and analytical instrumentation, and we want the person who will ultimately use these systems to help shape what we buy, how they are configured and how they are operated.

Just as important is what happens between the instruments.

They are working towards a synthesis platform that operates with increasing autonomy. This means the role is not only about selecting better purification and analytical tools — it is also about designing them into the broader workflow.

Samples should move from automated synthesis upstream into purification and analysis with as few manual handoffs as possible, while structured analytical data flows back downstream into the discovery platform.

How these systems connect is therefore just as important as the individual instruments themselves.

You will be part of a dynamic and growing Platform Chemistry team where decisions are made quickly and your contribution will be highly visible in the platform itself.

As the team grows, you will become the person others look to in this area — establishing how purification and analysis are performed, setting technical standards and helping less experienced colleagues develop their capabilities.

What you will do

• Define and deliver our purification and analytical strategy — instrument selection, specification, installation, commissioning and day-to-day operation
• Develop and optimise separation and analytical methods for challenging macrocyclic and small‑molecule compounds
• Own the analytical standards the platform runs to — characterisation, purity and the quality of the data our design models are built on
• Connect purification and analysis into our automated synthesis workflows, removing manual handoffs so the platform moves towards greater autonomy and throughput scales with the rest of it
• Troubleshoot instrumentation and methods, and act as the internal reference point when challenging separations and analyses require deeper understanding
• Train and support chemists across the team on purification and analytical methods and instrument use, and guide the development of junior colleagues working in this area as the team grows
• Advise on the capital investment case: what we need now, what we will need at the next scale, and what we should not buy

What you bring

• Deep, hands‑on experience in the preparative purification and analytical characterisation of small molecules or peptide — by LC and/or SFC.
• Experience specifying, installing, commissioning and troubleshooting purification and analytical instrumentation, not only operating it.
• Demonstrated method development for difficult separations, including compounds that do not resolve cleanly on standard conditions.
• MSc or PhD in chemistry, analytical chemistry or a related discipline, or equivalent depth built in industry.
• Comfort working in a small team where you own your area end to end and there is no separate function to hand the hard parts to.
• A willingness to bring others along — sharing methods, setting standards and guiding less experienced colleagues rather than holding the expertise yourself.

Strongly advantageous

• High‑throughput or automated purification and analysis in a discovery setting.
• Experience integrating instrumentation into automated workflows — sample handling, scheduling, data capture.
• Experience with peptides, macrocycles or other complex synthetic modalities.
• Having built or substantially expanded a lab capability before.

You do not need a peptide chemistry background

The macrocyclic compounds developed on the platform behave chemically closer to small molecules than to classical peptides, but they represent a distinct modality and bring their own challenges.

These compounds can behave differently in terms of separation, column interaction and characterization, so we are not looking for someone who expects existing methods to transfer unchanged.

Instead, we are looking for someone with deep purification and analytical expertise who is curious about a new modality, enjoys solving difficult separation problems and is interested in working increasingly on the peptide and macrocycle side of chemistry.

Why this role

You will build something rather than inherit it. The instrumentation decisions are still open, the platform is still being shaped, and the people making those calls are in the room with you.

This is an environment where ownership is real. You will be expected to speak up, make informed technical decisions and take responsibility for the outcome.

For the right person, this is an opportunity to shape not only individual analytical methods or instruments, but an entire purification and analysis capability at the heart of a growing automated drug‑discovery platform.