Associate Director, HP/PBM Customer Manager

Merck • North Wales, PA

12d • $142,400 - $224,100 • Remote

About The Position

This position sits within US Market Access End-to-End Contracting which delivers best-in-class, end-to-end services aimed at providing affordable patient access, insightful customer experiences, and enriching employee experiences. The Integrated Account Management (IAM) Team manages direct account and contract responsibility across the entire US health care system for our company's commercial and government business. The Associate Director, Health Plan (HP) / Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) Customer Manager (CM) acts as a unique and critical connection point in this dynamic environment to bridge field and internal stakeholders for the purpose of reaching mutually beneficial customer contracts. In close partnership with the designated National Account Director (NAD), this role relies on deep customer knowledge, close collaboration with internal stakeholders, and analytical acumen to serve as the internal-facing customer advocate. The CM will focus on managing the end-to-end contract lifecycle from development through implementation in coordination with field personnel for our health plan/PBM contracts. Incumbents in this role must have advanced proficiency in both cross-functional (e.g., communication, project management) and domain-specific (e.g., access strategy, financial acumen) competencies.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree (BS/BA) or equivalent
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical/healthcare industry
• Direct account management, customer contracting and financial analysis, customer marketing, and/or pharmaceutical supply chain experience.
• Demonstrated ability to negotiate, execute, and implement contracts
• Demonstrated ability to deliver on key initiatives and meet deadlines
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize and work effectively in a fast-paced, dynamic environment
• Demonstrated ability in strategic, relational, business-minded, analytical, and operational capabilities

Nice To Haves

• Account management and/or contracting experience with Health Plans (HPs) and Pharmacy Benefits Managers (PBMs)

Responsibilities

• Manages end-to-end contract process by drafting, revising, and negotiating utilization-based contracts.
• Serves as internal-facing counterpart to NAD to drive activities such as: Implementation and negotiation of contracting initiatives, Evaluation/review of account performance and segment trends to optimize net sales for company products, Balance improved customer performance with our company's business objectives, Identification and execution of contracting opportunities that meet profitability and access objectives, Engagement with our company's Senior Leadership to conduct business reviews, suggest strategic approaches to navigate customer relationships, and identify opportunities to optimize internal business objectives
• Partners with NAD on development and implementation of Customer Account Plans.
• Establishes and maintains meaningful relationships with contract decision makers inclusive of internal and external stakeholders.
• Drives collaboration among company stakeholders (e.g., CCE, Finance, Payer Marketing) to work toward agreements that are mutually beneficial to the Customer and our company.
• Proactively identifies opportunities to bring value to the customer(s) and provides recommendations to the NAD.
• Interprets legal language and understands its implications to develop Terms & Conditions (T&C), including identifying business-related areas of risk and exposure, in partnership with commercial attorneys or other internal counsel.
• Understands rules and contracting processes; uses that knowledge to identify creative solutions to successfully negotiate with internal our company's teams and/or Customers.
• Coordinates financial, trend, or data modeling analytic results and implications to support negotiations.
• Oversees internal-facing evaluations and analyses of customer contracts.
• Has a working knowledge of data analytics techniques to inform inputs/outputs of sophisticated analyses; can draw logically sound, data-driven conclusions about contract scenarios.
• Accurately applies appropriate analogy models and customer understanding to best recommend discounting options with customer financial modeling and profitability metrics.
• Monitors marketplace trends and regulatory changes that could influence contracts.
• Proactively gathers and analyzes product level information from other CMs and collaborates with Payer Marketing to guide payer marketing strategies.
• Demonstrates awareness of and sensitivity by creating experiences for all customers and coworkers.
• Utilizes strengths and acceptance of in team members, customers, or other individual stakeholders (e.g., in background or experience) to improve own performance

Benefits

• medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family)
• retirement benefits, including 401(k)
• paid holidays
• vacation
• compassionate and sick days
• annual bonus
• long-term incentive

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level