About the role

In your role as a Laboratory and QC Manager you create and maintain the basis for efficient and compliant lab operations. Being based in Bellinzona you are responsible for a smooth lab operation by actively shaping our processes and ensuring our compliance to GLP standards and local health & safety regulations. Your hands-on experience in managing and working in a regulated environment allows you to set high quality standards in our labs. You identify gaps in our workflows, control GLP compliance and train the lab team accordingly. Besides your QC responsibilities you initiate and manage diverse activities to facilitate and ease our operations in the lab by flexibly tackling administrative, organizational and operational tasks. By providing active support in instrument management, material sourcing and by constantly improving our daily routines you make sure that our lab team can focus on the science. With your very central role, you are a key contributor to our success and to driving our vision of delivering first-in-class protein therapeutics to patients. You work in a highly collaborative, team-oriented and fast-paced startup environment with a strong commitment to deliver and in ways that cut across traditional industry boundaries.

What you’ll do…

Ensure Laboratory Documentation and computerized systems compliance with data integrity policies and regulatory requirements.
Train lab personnel on GLP documentation practices, control lab documentations and retrain personnel where required.
Ensure that all analytical equipment is maintained and calibrated correctly and that system suitability tests are routinely applied.
Maintain instrument quality by administering service contracts and maintenance status.
Understand Regulations and business processes required to maintain Laboratory data integrity.
Maintain and review all documentation relevant to the laboratories, advise on specification changes where necessary and address potential gaps.
Administer/maintain the employee training system, keep track of employee training statuses and handle the release of updated or new SOPs to ensure a highly trained personnel.
Actively participate in internal and external audits and follow up on audit findings.
Assist in the resolution of specific quality problems as required.
Carry out specific tasks and projects as delegated by the senior management.
Ensure management is kept informed of system failures on a regular basis to ensure corrective/preventive action is taken where required.
Actively organize the organic implementation of new instruments in the lab
Manage Lab team towards achieving day to day and long term goals of establishing quality standards and provide the training/support necessary to ensure this.
You contribute to the compliance of laboratory layout, procedures and settings with local health & safety regulations (e.g. organization of chemical storage, waste-disposal, DSE assessment, Covid protection measures, etc.)
Create and promote a safe work environment that supports high quality/high productivity results;
Provide leadership and clear direction for employees by prioritizing safety and meeting all Environment, Health and Safety requirements.
Identify risks to good research practice and proactively create mitigations

What you Bring…

BS, MS or PhD in biotechnology, pharmaceutics, chemistry or a related field.
5 years (for a PhD) to 10 years (for a BS) of biotechnology and/or pharmaceutical industry experience is required.
The ideal candidate will have experience in big pharma/biotech; experience in a “start-up” biopharma company is a plus.
In-depth knowledge of QC and GLP principles, concepts, industry practices, and standards.
Several years of hands-on experience working within a GLP and/or GMP regulated environment.
Proven experience in laboratory safety and quality assurance.
Familiarity with ELN and LIMS systems.
Broad experimental background and familiarity with biochemical, biophysical and cell culture methods.
Robust experience and people management skills with the desire and ability to work in a fast-paced company.
Good interpersonal and communication skills essential for working across multi-functional teams.
Excellent conflict handling skills.
Strong collaboration, team-building, and organizational skills.
Excellent communication (verbal and written), managerial, analytical, planning, presentation, and writing skills.
Very strong organizational skills and flexible mindset to tackle cross-functional and very diverse tasks.
Fluency in spoken and written English and Italian are mandatory.
You have skills at coaching and supporting and can put yourself in other people’s shoes easily and know how to make them feel cared for.
Strong focus and attention to detail.
Able to manage multiple projects/tasks and adhere to timelines while maintaining flexibility to adapt to changing priorities.
Able to work independently and in a team setting.
Energetic, proactive and self-motivated.

About Us

Peptone is a category-defining translational biophysics company focusing on the intersection of physics, biology and supercomputing. Currently, we are in the scale up phase, where our efforts go into building out our experimental lab capacity in Switzerland while growing the HPC and ML teams in the UK.

Our interdisciplinary team consists of physicists, biologists, computational chemists, software engineers and mathematicians. We have created a company culture that is based on scientific and personal integrity and a highly supportive, inclusive attitude. Our curiosity and drive stem from the shared passion to contribute to our scientific understanding of proteins and to translate these insights into reality by developing drugs that make people’s lives better.

Corporate Culture

Default to transparency. As individuals, we view transparency as a lifestyle of authenticity, respect, and honesty. As a team, we view transparency as an effective way to work remotely and establish a culture of trust.

Cultivate positivity. We strive to approach things in a positive way while realizing all emotions are valid. We encourage constructive feedback from team members and business partners to foster positive collaborations.

Show gratitude. We regularly stop and demonstrate gratitude for our circumstances. We are reverent to our team, investors, advisors, and commercial partners who believed in us from the beginning and will always use this as a guiding light to growth.

Practice reflection. We believe the act of introspection is where true learning and life-changing adjustments originate. We approach discussions intentionally and think through all angles.

Improve consistently. We are biased toward action and have a higher expectation of ourselves and of our technology than others have of us. We aim to be fully engaged in our work and activities, and fully disconnected when we’re not working.

Act beyond yourself. We consider the bigger picture, knowing our work goes beyond ourselves. We are not afraid of the less-traveled path if it holds true to our values and betters the world.

Build Sustainably. Sustainability is at the core of our technology, research, and team values. Oppenheimer’s supercomputer runs on 100% renewable energy and mitigates the need for traditional high-throughput experiments in our Swiss lab. Our team is incentivized and committed to growing a sustainable future and corporate culture.

Diversify. Diversity at all levels is paramount in translating biophysics to first in-class medicines while embracing the serendipity of science. Diversity in mindsets, gender, skills, backgrounds, and — because we are geeks, protein sequences — are key to building an impactful future for our patients.

Patient Passion. Our team is interwoven with a passion for understanding the “why” of protein drug failures to avoid them. The integration of the Oppenheimer platform with our Swiss pre-clinical laboratory is an unwavering commitment to developing first-in-class protein therapeutics for our patients.

Reverence to the giants. We embrace the fortitude and ingenuity of all the great minds and teams who advanced the field of protein biophysics to enable cutting-edge therapeutics. It is our honor to collaborate in this arena to pay homage to scientists who laid the very foundation.

Committed to our Corporate Culture to embrace diversity, Peptone Ltd and affiliates are Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action employers building a culturally diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race; color; creed; religion; national origin; age; ancestry; nationality; marital, domestic partnership or civil union status; sex, gender, gender identity or expression; affectional or sexual orientation; disability; veteran or military status or liability for military status; domestic violence victim status; atypical cellular or blood trait; genetic information (including the refusal to submit to genetic testing) or any other characteristic protected by law. We believe in an agile working culture for all our roles. If flexibility is important to you, we encourage you to explore with our hiring team what the opportunities are.

Our Mission

Delivering first-in-class medicines for better patient outcomes is our obsession. Translating biophysics of intrinsic protein disorder to generate de novo protein therapeutics is our passion.

What we bring

A non-hierarchical environment where everyone has a voice to influence and shape the company’s future direction
An appreciative atmosphere with fair salaries, company benefits and top class working equipment
A highly dynamic environment with plenty of opportunities for career development
A highly skilled and interdisciplinary team that is passionate about proteins, science and business
A unique company giving you the opportunity to push the boundaries of biopharmaceutical drug development
A fast-paced company with novel science and academic rigor at its core
A company that values your contribution to scientific endeavor and supports presentation and publication of your novel discoveries
A flexible working setup to ensure a work-life balance