Senior Scientist – Process Chemistry & Catalysis

About the role

Roche is seeking a Senior Scientist to lead the design and optimisation of transition‑metal‑catalysed reactions and organic synthesis routes for scalable, safe and sustainable drug substance production.

Key responsibilities

• Design and implement catalytic processes that are cost‑effective, high‑yielding and compliant with safety and regulatory standards.
• Engineer catalyst structures to improve performance, stay abreast of emerging metal‑catalysis trends, and document results in line with internal regulations.
• Collaborate with research, manufacturing, procurement and quality teams, and drive external academic and industry partnerships.
• Author scientific reports, publications and patent applications, and mentor associate scientists and interns.

Required profile

• PhD in organometallic chemistry or homogeneous catalysis, plus post‑doctoral experience.
• Minimum 5 years of chemical process R&D experience in pharma or fine‑chemical industry.
• Proven track record scaling catalytic processes from lab to multi‑kg production.
• Strong organisational skills, meticulous documentation and fluent English (working knowledge of German).

Required skills

• Transition‑metal catalysis, catalyst synthesis and characterisation.
• Process chemistry and scale‑up of catalytic reactions.
• Design of Experiments (DoE) and reaction kinetics.
• Computational tools for retrosynthetic prediction and AI optimisation.