Associate Director, Marketing - HCC

Merck•North Wales, PA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) brand team is seeking an Associate Director of Consumer Marketing to lead the strategy, development, and sustained performance of a Patient Adherence Program. This program is designed to help patients initiate and continue therapy, ensuring the best possible experience. The role involves building an integrated adherence ecosystem that incorporates patient insights, behavioral science interventions, omnichannel engagement, hub/specialty pharmacy coordination, and robust analytics to achieve measurable patient impact. Reporting to the U.S. Consumer Marketing Lead, this position acts as a cross-functional orchestrator, responsible for setting the vision, driving execution, establishing governance and measurement, and continuously improving the program through innovation and collaboration with internal and external stakeholders. Within the first 12-18 months, the successful candidate will be expected to establish and scale an omnichannel adherence program that improves patient persistence, confidence, and engagement, develop a clear operating model, create a measurement framework, ensure seamless integration across the patient journey, and evolve the program through continuous content and experience improvements.

Requirements

BA/BS degree
5+ years of relevant experience in U.S. pharma/biopharma across consumer marketing, patient support, patient experience, access/coverage, distribution/SP ecosystem, and/or digital engagement.
Demonstrated success building and executing integrated marketing/program strategies with measurable outcomes.
Strong cross-functional leadership—ability to influence senior stakeholders and align complex enterprise teams.
Strong business and financial acumen (budget ownership, vendor management, value-case thinking).
Strong written/verbal communication and executive-ready storytelling with data.
Adaptability
Agile Methodology
Business Planning Development
Competitor Analysis
Digital Marketing
Executive Presence
Financial Analysis
Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Market Access
Marketing Planning
Market Research Techniques
Market Trend Analysis
Medical Affairs
Oral Communications
Organizational Performance Management
Patient Engagement
Performance Tracking
Product Management
Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
Strategic Planning
Strategic Thinking
Vendor Management

Nice To Haves

MBA, MPH (or advanced degree in a related field)
Experience designing, scaling, or optimizing patient adherence/retention programs and/or high-touch patient support models (hub services, specialty pharmacy-distributed therapies).
Rare disease and/or specialty therapy commercialization experience; PAH familiarity a plus.
Strong understanding of U.S. commercial and regulatory environment affecting patient programs (privacy, PV, compliance guardrails).
Hands-on experience with analytics and CX tooling (journey mapping, service design, call analytics, CRM/case management, BI tools such as Tableau/Power BI).
Experience operating in agile or agile-like delivery models.

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end adherence strategy: refine the program north star, target behaviors, segment needs, value proposition, and the integrated set of interventions that address adherence barriers across the journey.
Translate patient insights, behavioral barriers, and operational learnings into prioritized program enhancements that improve the patient experience and retention outcomes.
Lead development of omnichannel adherence interventions (e.g., CRM journeys, email/SMS where appropriate, web experiences, education content, toolkits) aligned to brand strategy and patient needs.
Ensure adherence communications are built for confidence-building, expectation-setting at initiation, and sustained reinforcement—tailored by segment and lifecycle stage.
Partner with Global/Comms and internal brand teams to ensure message consistency, education alignment, and channel synergy.
Partner with Digital, Data & Analytics and IT to define adherence KPIs, data requirements, and dashboards, enabling performance tracking, insight generation, and ongoing optimization.
Build a closed-loop measurement approach: connect interventions to outcomes (engagement → behavioral proxies → persistence metrics where available), and drive test/learn/scale cycles.
Synthesize complex data sets (patient experience signals, operational metrics, channel performance) to uncover drivers, risks, and opportunities to improve adherence outcomes.
Enable collaboration across Marketing, Patient Experience, Market Access, Field Access, Medical Affairs, Regulatory, Legal/Compliance, Pharmacovigilance, Privacy, distribution/specialty pharmacy, and hub/patient services to optimize the post-Rx experience.
Ensure program design integrates seamlessly into the real-world ecosystem (hub workflows, specialty pharmacy touchpoints, field education needs, consent capture considerations, etc.).
Lead integrated planning: program roadmap, timelines, resourcing, risk logs, and decision points; drive disciplined execution with clear milestones and accountability.
Oversee agencies and vendors (AORs, digital partners, operational partners): contracts/SOWs, SLAs, performance management, and budget stewardship.
Ensure adherence program strategy and execution are compliant with applicable requirements (e.g., FDA promotional regulations, privacy/HIPAA considerations, OIG guidance, state laws, AE/product complaint reporting), and partner with Legal/Compliance for approvals and monitoring.
Embed governance and guardrails into the program’s operating rhythm to enable speed without compromising compliance.