Senior/Medical Director – Medical Communications
Reports to Senior Vice President, Medical Direction
Job Summary
The Medical Director is responsible for the provision of strategic direction to internal colleagues and pharmaceutical, biotech & medical device clients across the medical communications spectrum. The Medical Director serves as the medical expert for the disease states they support, effectively developing high quality promotional medical education and commercial content that supports the strategic product positioning. The Medical Director must be able to quickly analyze and assimilate new clinical markets, therapeutic areas, and product information to support client strategic imperatives and actively drive growth and lead business development.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities
Strategy and Content
- Ensure that medical teams deliver the highest level of strategic and scientific integrity throughout medical communications materials across assigned accounts, including hands-on content development of certain projects, as needed
- Proactively share product/therapy area expertise, strategic direction, insights, recommendations, and solutions with clients on their projects and programs
- Liaise effectively with clients, healthcare professionals, and external service providers and troubleshoot and manage objections from the client and external stakeholders to ensure good relationships and attainment of goals
- Understand and apply healthcare industry best practices, policies, and guidelines pertinent to medical communications, as well as client MSAs and SOPs, proactively promoting team adherence
Business Development and Growth
- Support new business strategy in partnership with the Senior Leadership Team, representing/leading the medical team on new business activities (eg, credentials presentations, RFIs, RFPs, and pitches) to ensure high scientific caliber and high win rate
- Identify new opportunities within existing accounts, supporting the wider team to pursue organic growth opportunities by building strong and long-term trusted advisor-client relationships
- Stay abreast of innovation, market changes and competitor landscape to continually assess the position of OPEN Health as leaders in our field and develop new service offerings in line with these insights/business direction
Team Leadership and Management
- Motivate and promote a positive solutions-focused approach, open and timely communication, encouragement of feedback, and consideration of ideas and best practice sharing
- Work with senior management, medical, project, and account teams to coordinate resources to ensure appropriate medical support
- Lead internal and external meetings and discussions
- Establish best practices across assigned accounts to ensure the highest possible standards in content, levels of consistency, efficiencies, and cost-effectiveness
- Suggest adjustments to working practices and team structure and provide strategic guidance to the wider account team in this regard
- Provide accurate estimates of budgeted hours and proactively inform account teams when projects are at risk of going over budget or out of scope
- Develop close working relationships with team members to guide, coach, and motivate them, providing support as required and offering regular feedback on performance, both directly and to line managers
- Collaborate with senior colleagues, ensuring assigned accounts achieve objectives and key performance indicators
Experience, Skills, and Qualifications
- Advanced degree (eg, PhD, MD, MPH, PharmD) required
- Experience with promotional medical education/commercial tactics, such as promotional slide decks, national broadcasts, webinars, product theaters, speaker bureau, commercial advisory boards
- Broad therapeutic experience; Oncology (solid and heme) experience preferred
- Minimum 5 years of agency experience supporting promotional medical education (commercial/medical affairs)
- Proficient in MS365 including Word, Excel, Power Point, Outlook and Teams