Job Description
Role Summary
- The Global Medical Affairs and Strategic Alliances Director position resides in the Value & Implementation (V&I) organization, which includes Global Medical and Scientific Affairs as well as Outcomes Research.
- This position is accountable for supporting Medical Affairs (MA) activities for external strategic alliances and partnerships. The Global Medical Affairs and Strategic Alliances Director coordinates and supervises all alliance MA activities and collaborates with internal and external partners as they relate to these global activities. The Director supports the alignment of our scientific and medical strategies across the portfolio of relevant company products. The Director works on the continuous development and improvement of cross-functional alignment, systems and processes impacting Medical Affairs to ensure that work is uniform, complete, and consistent with relevant collaboration agreement. The Global Medical Affairs and Strategic Alliances Director holds responsibility (along with the Asset Lead) for the alignment between asset strategy and execution, above-asset and optimization initiatives to ensure succinct execution.
- The Global Medical Affairs and Strategic Alliances Director works closely with the Global and/or Regional Medical Affairs Leads, Commercial Teams, including Commercial Alliance Management, Global Medical and Value Capabilities, and Clinical Development to internally coordinate alliance MA activities, inform all major stakeholders of unmet needs, and facilitate approaches to address them.
Responsibilities and Primary Activities
Alliance Component
- Develops and maintains broad and deep external partner relationships and is knowledgeable about the partner’s scientific perspective
- Understands the process by which the partner executes MA activities
- Provides feedback to the partners if needed and builds multi-level relationships, including those at the executive level
- Facilitates high-quality interactions with partners through engagements about MA activities on an ongoing basis
- Coordinates with internal stakeholders to ensure alignment within Our Company
- Maintains close alignment with internal alliance finance leads to ensure accurate capture and reporting of alliance full-time equivalent (FTE) and MA activities spend
- Acts as the key internal and external MA point of contact for strategic alliances and partnerships to provide guidance and give direction to enable the execution of the MA plans
- Establishes and fosters strong working relationships with MA alliance partner.
- Liaises with internal and external partners to coordinate each MA function, such as Medical Information, Investigator Initiated Studies, Publications, Field Medical Activities, Scientific Leader Engagements, Training to ensure a synergistic approach to these activities
- Coordinates with the teams to ensure appropriate sharing of medical input and insights across the alliances as well as multiple internal functions across all geographies
- Communicates and collaborates with GMA Oncology Regional Leaders in the affiliates to ensure cross-fertilization of relevant MA information
- Assesses risks and identifies issues, conflicts, or gaps across alliances and regions
- Manages Global or Regional MA meetings with the partners, including the creation of collaborative meeting agendas and minutes and follow-up on action items
- Collaborates closely with Legal, Compliance, and Commercial Alliance Management as needed for clarification and guidance as it pertains to the overall alliance and/or alliance contract
- Supports short-/long-range profit and loss (P&L) forecasting by monitoring headcount and financial budget for MA activities for each specific alliance
- Provides updates and seeks endorsement, as requested, to senior leadership regarding all MA activities as related to specific alliances
Alliance Component
- Provides updates and seeks endorsement, as requested, to senior leadership regarding all MA activities as related to specific alliances
- Aligns organizational-driven priorities from an alliance perspective, including identifying and addressing critical organization needs to ensure the optimization of strategy as well as execution of critical tactics
- Ensure all bi-directional communications between Medical Affairs Teams are aligned, streamlined, and simplified and coordinated in adherence to all company policies and procedures
- Hold responsibility for the continuous development and improvement of cross-functional alignment between various therapeutic areas
- Ensure alignment and optimization of strategy as well as execution across all TA Medical Affairs Teams
- Participate in resource planning, policy development, and implementation of the TA Medical Affairs goals and objectives
- Hold responsibility for establishing standardized operating model as well as capturing and instilling best practices across TAs
- Serve as the primary alliance TA Medical Affairs point of contact for all operational and logistical stakeholders for aspects impacting the full TA team
- Establish standardized operating model, and capturing and instilling best practices across alliance to optimize Medical Affairs execution
- Leads the alignment and coordination of above brand and optimization initiatives specific to alliance teams to ensure appropriate field execution
- Aligns key business priorities, reporting, team analytics, impacts, and data gaps across internal teams and external Alliance Partners when assigned
- Harmonizes cross-functionally, realizing the value of relationships with key cross-functional stakeholders such as Global/Regional Medical and Scientific Affairs Partners (TA, GMVC, Health Systems, Operations, CORE and Human Health
- Represent TA Medical Affairs at departmental or cross-functional meetings impacting the alliance and TA teams to ensure appropriate resource allocation, alignment and planning
- Continuously scan the healthcare environment and analyze emerging trends to determine individual skills and competencies to drive future organizational capabilities
- Provide and leverage expert knowledge, innovative thinking and resources to assist in high priority projects and critical departmental/team meetings and events
- Strategically inform TA Leadership Team of gaps and/or opportunities to enhance processes and systems for TA Medical Affairs
- Exhibit expert understanding of company and organizational policies and procedures
- Partners with TA Leadership and Asset Leads to lead the activities that support building culture and maximize performance
Required Qualifications, Skills and Experience
Minimum
- Graduate degree in healthcare, science, or business areas.
- Minimum of 5 years of experience working in the pharmaceutical industry and/or Medical Affairs.
- Experience working in oncology or in support of oncology teams.
- Comprehensive project management intelligence quotient (IQ) with proven competence in leading multiple projects simultaneously.
- Strong direct and lateral leadership skills and ability to influence without authority.
- Excellent interpersonal, analytical, strategic, and tactical planning, project management, and organization skills.
- Exceptional ability to effectively communicate information (verbal and written) to internal and external stakeholders at all levels (e.g., senior leadership, management and individual contributor) and create presentation concepts and slides that are visually appealing with compelling content.
- Ability to handle a demanding and changing workload and respond efficiently to timelines and changing market events.
- Ability to work across a portfolio along the product life cycle.
- Business acumen with a superior understanding of the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare arena.
- Proven ability to work with cross-functional matrix teams and collaborate across multiple stakeholder groups (e.g., therapeutic areas).
- Proven track record of contribution to medical development strategies within the pharmaceutical industry.
Preferred
- PhD, PharmD, or MD strongly preferred.
- At least 2 years working in oncology or in support of oncology teams.
- Financial management experience.
- Experience working with or familiarity with a strategic alliance collaboration.
- Experience collaborating closely with Legal, Compliance, and Commercial Alliance Management as needed for clarification and guidance as it pertains to the overall alliance and/or alliance contract .
**Required Skills: **
Alliance Management, Business Execution, Business Partnerships, Corporate Alliances, Medical Writing, Oncology, Pharmaceutical Medical Affairs, Project Management, Results-Oriented, Scientific Communications, Strategic Planning, Strategic Thinking
**Preferred Skills: **
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The salary range for this role is
$190,800.00 - $300,300.00
This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs.
The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.
We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits.
You can apply for this role through https://jobs.merck.com/us/en (or via the Workday Jobs Hub if you are a current employee). The application deadline for this position is stated on this posting.
San Francisco Residents Only: We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance
Los Angeles Residents Only: We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance
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**Employee Status: **
Regular
Relocation:
No relocation
VISA Sponsorship:
No
Travel Requirements:
10%
Flexible Work Arrangements:
Hybrid
Shift:
Not Indicated
Valid Driving License:
No
Hazardous Material(s):
n/a
Job Posting End Date:
06/12/2026
***A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date. **