Director, Global Patient Engagement

GSK•Philadelphia, PA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

At GSK, we are ambitious for patients. As the healthcare landscape continues to evolve—bringing new stakeholders, data sources, and expectations—we are committed to ensuring that the patient voice meaningfully informs how medicines are developed, evaluated, launched, and delivered to patients. This includes patient engagement across drug development, regulatory decision‑making, health technology assessment, launch planning, and patient care. Role Overview The Director, Global Patient Engagement – Clinical Development, Launch & In‑Market is a Director‑level leadership role within the Patient Focused Development (PFD) team at GSK. This position is accountable for shaping and embedding meaningful, compliant, and strategically aligned patient engagement across the full asset lifecycle, from early clinical development through first‑line launch and post‑launch in‑market execution. The role ensures that patient insights, lived experience, and priorities are systematically integrated into clinical development decision‑making, clinical trial design and execution, global medical strategy, and global product strategy. This creates continuity between early development decisions and patient‑relevant positioning, evidence generation, education, and scientific communication throughout launch and in‑market phases. In Clinical Development, the Director partners closely with Global Clinical Development to ensure patient input informs clinical trial protocols, study design, and patient‑facing materials (including Informed Consent Forms), with a focus on reducing unnecessary patient burden, improving trial experience, and supporting recruitment, retention, and feasibility. In parallel, the role works in close collaboration with Global Medical Affairs (GMA) and Global Product Strategy (GPS) to translate patient insights into patient‑centered frontline strategies, launch planning, and post‑launch optimization, ensuring that patient relevance is consistently reflected in how GSK plans for, communicates about, and delivers value. A core accountability of the role is to establish, sustain, and lead long‑term, trust‑based relationships with patient organizations, patient advocates, and patient leaders, acting as a credible, ethical, and compliant external representative of GSK. These relationships enable a deep understanding of patient needs and priorities and ensure patient insights meaningfully inform development, launch, and lifecycle innovation strategies. The Director has a strong external presence, representing GSK and its assets in relevant patient advocacy forums, disease‑area meetings, and external engagement platforms, strengthening GSK’s reputation as a trusted, ethical, and patient‑centered partner across both the R&D and healthcare ecosystems. The role operates in close partnership with Clinical Development, Global Medical Affairs, Global Product Strategy, Commercial, Communications, Insights, Digital, Scientific Communications, and Regional and Local Operating Company (LOC) teams, leading the development and execution of integrated patient engagement and advocacy strategies that support effective global‑to‑local execution.

Requirements

Minimum 8–10 years of relevant experience in patient engagement, Medical Affairs, drug development, healthcare, biotech, pharmaceutical, advocacy, or clinical research environments.
Demonstrated leadership experience, including at least 3–5 years of formal people leadership and/or accountability for leading cross‑functional matrix teams (≥3 functions) and external partners at regional or global level.
Hands‑on experience leading or co‑leading a minimum of 3–5 patient engagement initiatives, with documented impact across at least two phases of the medicine lifecycle (development, launch, and/or in‑market).
Solid understanding of the drug development lifecycle and/or Medical Affairs, evidenced by direct involvement in at least one development program, medical strategy, or post‑approval activity, with responsibility for patient‑related inputs.
Proven experience translating patient insights into documented actionable outputs (e.g., strategy recommendations, program design, evidence plans), with examples demonstrating direct influence on development, launch, or in‑market decision‑making.
Experience working directly and ethically with patients, carers, and patient advocates for a minimum of 3 years, including activities such as interviews, advisory boards, co‑creation workshops, or ongoing partnerships, in compliance with applicable governance standards.

Nice To Haves

Excellent oral and written communication skills, with the ability to effectively engage and influence senior management, cross‑functional teams, and external stakeholders.
Therapeutic area expertise, particularly within relevant disease areas.
Change management experience, including leading transformation, new ways of working, or capability maturity initiatives.
Experience with digital, data‑driven, or emerging (including AI‑enabled) approaches to patient engagement and insight generation.
Experience working with patient experience data, real‑world evidence, or mixed‑methods insights to inform strategy.
Familiarity with Insights, analytics, and AI‑supported tools used to capture, analyze, or operationalize patient perspectives.
Comfort working in innovative or evolving operating models, including piloting new approaches to patient engagement.

Responsibilities

Lead and embed the global patient engagement and advocacy strategy across the full asset lifecycle, from clinical development through launch and post‑launch, ensuring alignment with Clinical Development, Global Medical Affairs (GMA), and Global Product Strategy (GPS).
Ensure patient insights, lived experience, and priorities are systematically integrated into clinical development decision‑making, including clinical trial protocols, study design, and patient‑relevant aspects of study execution.
Partner closely with Global Clinical Development teams to incorporate patient input into clinical trial design, conduct considerations, and patient‑facing materials (including Informed Consent Forms), with a focus on reducing patient burden and improving trial experience.
Translate patient insights into actionable input for Global Medical Affairs and Global Product Strategy, informing first‑line launch planning, evidence generation, education initiatives, scientific communications, and in‑market optimization.
Serve as the global subject matter expert on patient experience and engagement, facilitating meaningful patient input across a highly matrixed organization spanning R&D, Medical, and Commercial functions.
Develop, sustain, and lead strategic relationships with patient organizations, advocates, and patient leaders, acting as a trusted, ethical, and compliant external representative of GSK.
Design and oversee patient insight‑gathering and engagement activities, including participation in patient advocacy forums, disease‑area meetings, and sponsored initiatives, to continuously inform strategy and improve patient outcomes.
Support lifecycle optimization and innovation efforts, ensuring patient perspectives inform asset expansion, innovation opportunities, and long‑term value delivery.
Identify, manage, and proactively mitigate patient engagement risks, ensuring adherence to HIPAA, patient privacy requirements, regulatory expectations, and all corporate compliance and ethical standards.
Manage patient engagement budgets and champion digital and AI‑enabled innovation, partnering with the Patient Future program to increase efficiency and amplify the impact of patient insights.