VP, AI Accelerator — Drug Discovery & Foundation Models

Evotec; Abingdon; Hybrid; GBP 200,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Evotec is seeking a VP Head of AI to lead the AI Accelerator, the single consolidated AI capability of Evotec's In Silico & AI function. The role is accountable for turning discovery data and frontier models into predictive models, AI‑generated hypotheses and agentic workflows used across the science units, setting the AI vision and owning build, buy and partner decisions.

The post holder represents Evotec externally as a recognised technical leader in AI‑powered drug discovery, and will build a

Qualifications

• MSc or PhD in ML, CS, computational biology, chemistry, physics, engineering or mathematics.
• Significant AI leadership experience in biotech, pharma or a comparable discovery environment.
• Evidence of external technical standing: publications, patents, open‑source contributions or similar.
• Fluent business English with strong executive communication.
• Proven track record delivering sustained scientific and commercial impact through AI.

Responsibilities

• Own and lead the AI Accelerator as the single consolidated ML, DL and foundation‑model capability.
• Set the technical AI vision and multi‑year roadmap for AI in drug discovery at Evotec.
• Deliver predictive models for molecular properties, ADMET and safety at scale.
• Deliver AI‑generated hypotheses feeding Disease‑to‑Target and Therapeutics pipelines.
• Own foundation‑model orchestration and agentic workflows with proprietary data.
• Build the AI function across a multi‑site, international organisation; leadership and governance.

Skills

ML/DL in drug discovery

AI leadership

Foundation models

Multi-omics data

Executive communication

Education

MSc or PhD in ML/CS/Computational Biology/ Chemistry/ Physics/ Engineering

Tools

Foundation Models

Agentic AI systems

Graph neural networks

Job description

Evotec is seeking a VP Head of AI to lead the AI Accelerator, the single consolidated AI capability of Evotec's In Silico & AI function. The role is accountable for turning discovery data and frontier models into predictive models, AI‑generated hypotheses and agentic workflows used across the science units, setting the AI vision and owning build, buy and partner decisions.

The post holder represents Evotec externally as a recognised technical leader in AI‑powered drug discovery, and will build a