Head of External Drug Discovery Operations, London

Isomorphic Labs is applying frontier AI to help unlock deeper scientific insights, faster breakthroughs, and life-changing medicines with an ambition to solve all disease.

The future is coming. A future enabled and enriched by the incredible power of machine learning. A future in which diseases are curtailed or cured starting with better and faster drug discovery. 

Come and be part of an interdisciplinary team driving groundbreaking innovation and play a meaningful role in contributing towards us achieving our ambitious goals, while being a part of an inspiring and collaborative culture.

The world we want tomorrow is the one we’re building today. It starts with the culture at this company. It starts with you. 

About Iso

Isomorphic Labs (IsoLabs) was launched in 2021 to advance human health by building on and beyond the Nobel-winning AlphaFold system. Since then, our interdisciplinary team of drug discovery experts and machine learning specialists has built powerful new predictive and generative AI models that accelerate scientific discovery at digital speed.

Our name comes from the belief that there is an underlying symmetry between biology and information science. By harnessing AI’s powerful capabilities, we can use it to model complex biological phenomena to help design novel molecules, anticipate how drugs will perform and develop innovative medicines to treat and cure some of the world’s most devastating diseases.

We have built a world-leading drug design engine comprising AI models that are capable of working across multiple therapeutic areas and drug modalities. We are continually innovating on model architecture and developing cutting-edge capabilities to advance rational drug design.

Every day, and with each new breakthrough, we’re getting closer to the promise of digital biology, and achieving our ambitious mission to one day solve all disease with the help of AI.

About the External Drug Discovery Operations team

We are establishing a new, centralised External Drug Discovery Operations group to serve as the operational engine for all externalised wet-lab research across Isomorphic Labs. Partnering directly with Drug Discovery & Medical Research (DDMR) and Data Generation teams, this centre of excellence orchestrates, oversees, and scales our global Contract Research Organisation (CRO) footprint. Comprising CRO Scientific Leads, CRO Operations Managers, and Compound Managers, the team ensures high-throughput, high-fidelity data generation.

Your impact

The Head of External Drug Discovery Operations is a highly impactful role to drive and optimise how we utilise external partners to accelerate our pipeline delivery. You will lead all externalised drug discovery and preclinical laboratory activities, bridging wet-lab execution and enterprise data strategy. You will design, establish, and scale a modern CRO infrastructure tailored for an AI-first drug design platform, ensuring external workflows yield structured metadata, standardised assays, and automated ingestion pipelines across diverse therapeutic modalities. In partnership with DDMR leadership, you will shape long-term external sourcing strategies to maximise operational agility, experimental quality, and cycle time reduction. You will lead a dedicated team of CRO Scientific Leads, CRO Operations Managers, and Compound Managers, fostering a culture of technical and operational excellence, and cross-functional collaboration with our project teams.

What you will do

• Lead CRO operational strategy and execution: Oversee all external drug discovery and preclinical operations, driving accountability for experimental throughput, data quality control (QC), and end-to-end turnaround times to feed internal computational pipelines.
• Embed AI-first data architecture: Partner with Data Engineering and Informatics to mandate that external partner deliverables adhere to strict data-generation-by-design standards (standardised schemas, rich metadata capture, machine-readable formats, and direct pipeline integration).
• Strategic partner governance: Establish vendor selection criteria, governance tiers, and rigorous KPIs. Cultivate collaborative, high-trust relationships with key CROs while enforcing deliverables and rapidly resolving scientific or operational bottlenecks.
• Internal stakeholder alignment: Partner across our London, Boston and Lausanne sites with the Heads of Biology, Chemistry, DPC and DMPK/Safety to forecast resourcing demands, balance internal/external capacity, and translate project milestones into actionable external work packages.
• Evaluate novel platforms and technologies: In collaboration with Business Development and Discovery Leadership, scout, assess, and onboard emerging CRO capabilities and specialised experimental platforms.
• Commercial and budget stewardship: Collaborate with Procurement, Legal, and Finance to manage the external discovery budget, negotiate MSAs/rate cards, and streamline SOW generation and invoice reconciliation.
• Build and mentor a talented, motivated team: Recruit, lead, and develop a high-performing team of CRO Scientific Leads, Operations Managers, and Compound Management professionals.

Skills and qualifications

Essential:

• Ph.D. or Master’s degree in Chemistry, Biology, Pharmacology, or a related life sciences discipline.
• Substantial industry track record of biopharma R&D leadership, leading external research, discovery CRO management, or externalised discovery programs within biotech or pharma.
• Technical breadth and working knowledge across medicinal/synthetic chemistry, in vitro screening cascades, in vivo pharmacology, and ADMET workflows.
• Data-centric operational delivery, with proven experience instituting structured data collection frameworks with external vendors, including automated QC, data curation protocols, and machine-readable data transfers.
• Practical experience of deploying modern productivity tools and automated workflow systems to streamline external research operations.
• Commercial and financial acumen, with demonstrated success managing £multi-million discovery budgets, negotiating complex vendor agreements (MSAs/SOWs), and partnering with corporate Procurement and Legal functions.
• Proven track record of team leadership and influencing others in a matrix structure, including recruiting, mentoring, and organising operational teams while effectively driving alignment across cross-functional matrix leaders.
• Familiarity with small molecules and complex or emerging modalities.

Nice to have:

• Practical experience structuring chemical and biological data streams for machine learning workflows and automated DMTA cycles.
• Exposure to or interest in applying agentic AI solutions to streamline external research operations.
• Experience with biologics workflows.

Culture and values

We are guided by our shared values. It's not about finding people who think and act in the same way. These values help to guide our work and will continue to strengthen it. 

Thoughtful
Thoughtful at Iso is about curiosity, creativity and care. It is about good people doing good, rigorous and future-making science every single day.

Brave
Brave at Iso is about fearlessness, but it’s also about initiative and integrity. The scale of the challenge demands nothing less.

Determined
Determined at Iso is the way we pursue our goal. It’s a confidence in our hypothesis, as well as the urgency and agility needed to deliver on it. Because disease won’t wait, so neither should we.

Together
Together at Iso is about connection, collaboration across fields and catalytic relationships. It’s knowing that transformation is a group project, and remembering that what we’re doing will have a real impact on real people everywhere.

Creating an extraordinary company

We believe that to be successful we need a team with a range of skills and talents. We're building an environment where collaboration is fundamental, learning is shared and every employee feels supported and able to thrive. We value unique experiences, knowledge, backgrounds, and perspectives, and harness these qualities to create extraordinary impact.

We are committed to equal employment opportunities regardless of sex, race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy or related condition (including breastfeeding) or any other basis protected by applicable law. If you have a disability or additional need that requires accommodation, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Hybrid working

It’s hugely important for us to share knowledge and build strong relationships with each other, and we find it easier to do this if we spend time together in person. This is why we follow a hybrid model, and would require you to be able to come into the office 3 days a week (currently Tuesday, Wednesday, and one other day depending on which team you’re in). If you have additional needs that would prevent you from following this hybrid approach, we’d be happy to talk through these if you’re selected for an initial screening call.

Please note that when you submit an application, your data will be processed in line with our privacy policy .