Company Description
Bicycle Therapeutics is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing a novel class of medicines, referred to as Bicycle® molecules, for diseases that are underserved by existing therapeutics. Bicycle molecules are fully synthetic short peptides constrained with small molecule scaffolds to form two loops that stabilize their structural geometry. This constraint facilitates target binding with high affinity and selectivity, making Bicycle molecules attractive candidates for drug development. The company is evaluating zelenectide pevedotin (formerly BT8009), a Bicycle® Toxin Conjugate (BTC®) targeting Nectin-4, a well-validated tumor antigen; BT5528, a BTC molecule targeting EphA2, a historically undruggable target; and BT7480, a Bicycle Tumor-Targeted Immune Cell Agonist® (Bicycle TICA®) targeting Nectin-4 and agonizing CD137, in company-sponsored clinical trials. Additionally, the company is developing Bicycle® Radio Conjugates (BRC™) for radiopharmaceutical use and, through various partnerships, is exploring the use of Bicycle® technology to develop therapies for diseases beyond oncology.
Bicycle Therapeutics is headquartered in Cambridge, UK, with many key functions and members of its leadership team located in Cambridge, Mass.
Culture is key and all Bicycle employees actively embrace and role model our company values:
- We are Adventurous. We believe it’s the way to deliver extraordinary results for our patients.
- We are Dedicated to our Mission. You can’t change the world if you don’t have determination.
- We are One Team. We only succeed when we work together.
Job Description
The Associate Director of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) reports to the Vice President of Quantitative Pharmacology group. In partnership with drug discovery medicinal chemists and pharmacologists, they will be responsible for representing DMPK, designing and executing non-clinical studies in support of multiple projects from target identification through to candidate selection and ultimately regulatory submission.
- Design and implement the appropriate DMPK strategy according to the stage and needs of a project.
- Design experiments, review, interpret and present data at multifunctional project teams.
- Perform DMPK activities including interactions with external CRO’s and internal project stakeholders.
- Work collaboratively with other core disciplines within a project team to support compound progression based on optimizing DMPK properties.
- Integrate data from multiple sources to inform the understanding of bicyclic peptide distribution, metabolism and excretion.
- Work closely with in-vivo pharmacology, toxicology and/or clinical pharmacology to design experiments to understand preclinical pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) relationships and enable human efficacious dose projection.
- Track DMPK budgets for CRO’s and contribute to project spending forecasts.
Qualifications
- MSc/PhD in relevant scientific discipline such as drug metabolism, pharmacology, pharmaceutical sciences.
- Experience working on DMPK drug discovery and/or development projects as a DMPK representative with a track record of problem solving and successful delivery across drug discovery.
- In depth understanding of DMPK science with additional knowledge of related disciplines.
- Ability to adapt your working style to suit different cultures and partner expectations in both remote and office-based environment.
- Excellent organisation and communication skills, both written and oral, with the ability to influence.
- Hands-on experience in in vitro-in vivo extrapolation (IVIVE), PK, PK/PD, and/or physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling preferred.
- Experience supporting radiopharmaceutical projects desirable.
- Experience working on peptides or macrocycles would be an advantage.
- Experience using Dotmatics would be an advantage.
Additional Information
- State-of-the-art campus environment with on campus restaurant and Montessori nursery
- Flexible working environment
- Competitive reward including annual company bonus
- Employee recognition schemes
- 28 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays + option to buy up to 5 additional days annually
- Employer contribution to pension (employee does not have to contribute)
- Life assurance cover 4x basic salary
- Private Medical Insurance, including optical and dental cover
- Enhanced parental leave policies
- Group income protection
- Employee assistance program
- Health Cash Plan
- Access to company subsidized gym membership
- Eligibility for an option grant to subscribe to shares in Bicycle Therapeutics plc.
- Cycle to work scheme
Bicycle Therapeutics is committed to building a diverse workforce that is representative of the communities we serve. We recognize that diverse and inclusive teams build a stronger and more innovative company. Therefore, all qualified applicants will be considered for employment, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability status, marital status, or veteran status.
What We Do
We are Bicycle Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. We didn’t wait for the next advance against cancer. We created it.
Based on groundbreaking work conceived in the laboratory of Sir Greg Winter with the help of Professor Christian Heinis, we are pioneering the development of bicyclic peptides, or Bicycles® – a novel class of versatile, chemically synthesized medicines. Bicycles are fully synthetic short peptides constrained to form two loops which stabilize their structural geometry. This constraint is designed to confer high affinity and selectivity, and the relatively large surface area presented by the molecule allows targets to be drugged that have historically been intractable to non-biological approaches. Bicycles represent a unique therapeutic class, combining the pharmacological properties normally associated with a biologic with the manufacturing and pharmacokinetic advantages of a small molecule, yet with no signs of immunogenicity observed to date.
Bicycles can be used as Bicycle conjugates to deliver toxin payloads and to precisely target local immune activation within tumors and as Bicycle T-cell modulators, which activate cytotoxic T-cells while circumventing the limitations of antibody and biologic therapies and better enabling combination therapy. Our lead product candidate, BT1718, is a Bicycle toxin conjugate currently being investigated in a Phase I/IIa open label dose escalation and expansion clinical trial sponsored by Cancer Research UK. BT1718 targets Membrane Type 1 Matrix Metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP), also known as MMP-14, which is highly expressed in many solid tumors.
Our strategic collaborations are based on the ability of Bicycles to address a wide variety of targets. Through collaborations with AstraZeneca, Oxurion, Innovate UK and the Dementia Discovery Fund, we work with companies that have deep therapeutic expertise outside of oncology to enable us to more efficiently develop novel medicines for patients.
