Associate Director, CMC Drug Substance

Recursion; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 84,000 - 99,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading TechBio company in Greater London is seeking an Associate Director, CMC Drug Substance. In this role, you will lead external drug substance development and provide technical leadership for manufacturing activities. The ideal candidate will have a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, with significant experience in drug substance process development. A hybrid working model is offered, with competitive annual compensation ranging from £84,000 to £98,900, along with additional bonuses and equity compensation.

Benefits

Annual bonus

Equity compensation

Comprehensive benefits package

Qualifications

• 5-8 years experience in drug substance development for Ph.D. candidates.
• Strong knowledge of manufacturing best practices across all drug development phases.
• Experience leading external development and CDMO relationships is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead external drug substance development across the portfolio.
• Provide technical leadership and oversight of development and manufacturing activities.
• Analyze process data to solve key synthetic challenges.

Skills

Strong knowledge of small molecule drug substance process development

Project management

Technical leadership

Cross-functional understanding of drug substance development

Education

Ph.D. in organic chemistry or closely related field

M.S. with 8-12 years of experience

Job description

Your work will change lives. Including your own.

The Impact You’ll Make

Recursion is on the cutting edge of drug discovery, generating proprietary maps of biology that provide unique insights, driving target identification, validation, and ultimately novel clinical candidates. We are seeking an Associate Director, CMC Drug Substance to advance our current and future clinical assets through development and ultimately to patients in need.

In this role you will:

• Lead external drug substance development across our portfolio including oversight of CDMOs and strategic technical development relationships
• Provide technical leadership, project management and oversight of drug substance process development and manufacturing activities supporting Recursion’s clinical programs
• Ensure delivery of drug substance from external manufacturing campaigns adhering to current quality guidelines and delivery timelines. Typical travel to external manufacturing sites is 10-20% of the time.
• Critically analyze process and analytical data to identify and resolve key synthetic challenges during drug substance development
• Participate in developing and extending our CDMO relationships, budget planning and forecasting for drug substance expenditures and achieving our quality requirements

The Team You’ll Join

As Associate Director, CMC Drug Substance, you will be an essential member of the Recursion CMC Team reporting to the Executive Director, CMC Drug Substance. The CMC Team is an empowered, execution‑minded group of scientists and technical experts responsible for translating Recursion’s innovative science to patients in clinic through CMC activities and deliverables.

The Experience You’ll Need

• Ph.D. in organic chemistry or closely related field with a minimum of 5‑8 years experience or M.S. with 8‑12 years of experience
• Strong knowledge and experience in small molecule drug substance process development and manufacturing best practices across all phases of drug development, from initial regulatory filings through registration, validation and launch
• Prior experience leading external development and CDMO relationships is a plus
• Demonstration of cross‑functional understanding related to drug substance development including salt/polymorph screening, phase appropriate analytical development, standard process of drug product development, quality and regulatory affairs
• Well‑versed in the latest trends impacting drug substance technology, manufacturing and the outsourcing industry

Working Location & Compensation

This is an office‑based, hybrid position at one of our offices in either Milton Park or London, England. Employees are expected to work in the office at least 50% of the time.

At Recursion, we believe that every employee should be compensated fairly. Based on the skill and level of experience required for this role, the estimated current annual base range for this role is £84,000 to £98,900 (GBP). You will also be eligible for an annual bonus and equity compensation, as well as a comprehensive benefits package.

#LI-DB1

The Values We Hope You Share

• We act boldly with integrity. We’re unconstrained in our thinking, take calculated risks, and push boundaries, but never at the expense of ethics, science, or trust.
• We care deeply and engage directly. Caring means holding a deep sense of responsibility and respect – showing up, speaking honestly, and taking action.
• We learn actively and adapt rapidly. Progress comes from doing. We experiment, test, and refine, embracing iteration over perfection.
• We move with urgency because patients are waiting. Speed isn’t about rushing but about moving the needle every day.
• We take ownership and accountability. Through ownership and accountability, we enable trust and autonomy—leaders take accountability for decisive action, and teams own outcomes together.
• We are One Recursion. True cross‑functional collaboration is about trust, clarity, humility, and impact. Through sharing, we can be greater than the sum of our individual capabilities.

Our values underpin the employee experience at Recursion. They are the character and personality of the company demonstrated through how we communicate, support one another, spend our time, make decisions, and celebrate collectively.

More About Recursion

Recursion (NASDAQ: RXRX) is a clinical stage TechBio company leading the space by decoding biology to radically improve lives. Enabling its mission is the Recursion OS, a platform built across diverse technologies that continuously generate one of the world’s largest proprietary biological and chemical datasets. Recursion leverages sophisticated machine‑learning algorithms to distill from its dataset a collection of trillions of searchable relationships across biology and chemistry unconstrained by human bias. By commanding massive experimental scale — up to millions of wet lab experiments weekly — and massive computational scale — owning and operating one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, Recursion is uniting technology, biology and chemistry to advance the future of medicine.

Recursion is headquartered in Salt Lake City, where it is a founding member of BioHive, the Utah life sciences industry collective. Recursion also has offices in Toronto, Montréal, New York, London, Oxford area, and the San Francisco Bay area. Learn more at www.Recursion.com, or connect on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Recursion is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, local, or provincial human rights legislation.

Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.

Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Recursion Pharmaceuticals and its affiliate companies do not accept resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Recursion or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Recursion’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Recursion, and Recursion will not owe any referral or other fees. Our team will communicate directly with candidates who are not represented by an agent or intermediary unless otherwise agreed to prior to interviewing for the job.