National Director, Field Medical Affairs - Ophthalmology

EVERSANA•Chicago, IL

3d•Remote

About The Position

The National Director, Field Medical Affairs is a pivotal role focused on ophthalmology, specifically retinal indications, providing leadership support to the client. This individual acts as a highly trained, field-based scientific expert in retinal therapy, setting an example for the field MSL team. The role involves engaging healthcare professionals and leaders in scientific exchange around therapeutics, focusing on the client's product. Responsibilities include strategic planning for peer-to-peer scientific exchange, advocacy engagement, and disease state education. The Director will collaborate with agency, MLR, and internal medical leadership to develop a robust field medical plan and appropriate resources. They will design, coordinate, and implement field-based messaging and tools, adhering to regulatory and corporate guidelines. This position requires interaction with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), healthcare practitioners (HCPs), professional societies, and patient advocacy groups involved in the treatment of nAMD. The Director will ensure the MSL team functions as a highly trained group of scientific experts.

Requirements

Advanced degree (OD, MD, PhD, PharmD, MSN or NP/PA) is required.
4+ years of industry experience and 2 years demonstrated leadership experience managing field-based teams preferred.
Demonstrated leadership success in pharmaceutical field-based experience and/or pharmaceutical industry related experience.
Ophthalmology and retina specialty field experience required.
Excellence in scientific acumen, ability to understand and communicate complex science to many different audiences.
Flexibility in adapting/reacting to changing market urgency dynamics and competitive challenges.
Tolerance for ambiguity and the ability to be flexible within the work environment.
High sense of urgency and commitment to excellence in the successful achievement of objectives.
Excellent planning and organizational skills to support leadership and initiative.
Teamwork is a mandatory requirement as it involves internal/external networking, and compliant cross functional collaboration across departments and companies (our client and EVERSANA).
Excellent analytical, conceptual, and administrative skills.
Advanced communication skills both oral, written and presentation.
Excellent problem solving and analytic capability in concert with strong negotiation skills.
Competent to use standard computer technologies including integrated business software (word processing, spreadsheet) and other common applications.
Demonstrated exceptional business acumen.
Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities.
Must be able to identify and analyze the needs of the business and translate problems into business opportunities.
Knowledge of personnel management including recruitment, hiring, progressive discipline process, coaching, and motivation.
Knowledge of PHARMA, OIG and FDA regulations regarding non promotional activities.
Must have excellent leadership, management, and communication skills.
Confident initiative-taker able to lead the development of field strategy and execute/manage the execution of tactical plans.
As an external representative of our client and EVERSANA, must always act in a professional manner.
Must have the ability to build and support positive relationships with management, peers, and subordinates.
Must display superior organizational management and critical thinking skills.
Working knowledge of institutions and clinics is expected.
Excellent written and oral presentation skills.
Ability to travel frequently (70%) with overnight stays (e.g., KOL meetings, site locations, internal meetings, medical meetings and congresses, training).

Responsibilities

Recruitment and retention of key talent for our client.
Builds an organization reflecting a diverse and inclusive workforce that inspires, supports, and celebrates both team and personal achievements and empowers team to achieve results.
Establishes a connected and productive work environment by creating trust and respect within the group and establishes self as a trusted leader.
Provides coaching, mentoring and guidance that is consistent and prompt to MSLs regarding their individual performance and progress, including annual performance reviews, professional development and succession planning, and real time field reports based upon regular field travel combined with data analysis.
Oversees KOL/HCP planning and implementation, as well as development of regional/national KOLs.
Works with our client and EVERSANA leadership to establish team goals and objectives consistent with the product scientific imperatives and brand plan.
Collaborates with Learning and Performance to develop and execute comprehensive subject matter expertise training to assure data fluency.
Implements effective onboarding programs for new team members and establishes routine team meetings, education, 1:1 mentoring and feedback sessions to create successful team dynamics and individual development.
Utilizes field coaching tools and territory field visits with MSLs to assure territory management and data fluency in the field.
Implements metric and insights reporting for internal team to update key stakeholders on regular basis.
Ultimate responsibility for scientific knowledge of self/team and oversight of MSL territory plans.
Maintains clinical knowledge of designated therapeutic areas and broad market knowledge of the region, including current treatment strategies, current and pending competitors, new therapeutic developments, payor dynamics, and other market issues/trends.
Identifies any gaps or areas of training for the team and secures clinical experts to support training needs.
Translation of field medical execution and initiatives to enhance cross functional collaboration with aligned stakeholders.
Collect field insights, through surveys (or CRM) and aligned with objectives, collating, and analyzing the insights to share internally with our client and EVERSANA leadership.
Maintains deep understanding of therapeutic strategy and interpretation of analytics to inform and maximize MSL Core Capabilities.
Accountable for the direction and execution of medical goals/objectives and territory plans.
Evaluates appropriate tools and analytics to ensure optimal scientific exchange through HCP engagement.
Engages in collaboration and coordination with clinical operations within the geographic region to support any clinical trial needs.
Maximizes in-field team effectiveness.
Ensures that MSL team members maintain adequate communication and interaction with the commercial and market access field teams, when appropriate and according to compliance and regulatory guidelines.
Ensure cross-functional collaboration and ways of working with all departments.
Accountable and compliant with follow-up to medical information requests in a timely manner.
Leads business/clinical strategy and tactical plan development, tactical plan implementation, impact goal achievement, and quantification of results at the field level.
Decision-making responsibility and accountability for deploying regional resources to support franchise and business initiatives and attainment of medical objectives.
Maintain clinical and scientific, expertise in pathophysiology and targeted therapy with specific focus in standards of care related to of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) therapeutics.
May serve as a resource for investigator-initiated trial (IIT) proposals.
Provide internal teams with feedback and insights from interactions with KOLs.
Represent our client at medical meetings through Medical Affairs’ Scientific Booth coverage and other related activities.
Attend congresses as appropriate and develop meaningful internal reports of the congresses covered.
Adhere to corporate SOPs and ensure vigilant compliance with relevant legal and regulatory guidelines governing scientific interactions with physicians and healthcare professionals across all activities, including those related to clinical trials, scientific interactions with internal and external groups, and responses to unsolicited requests for medical/scientific information.
Consistently demonstrate a high standard of excellence in the management of field team while also contributing to the success of colleagues and the internal stakeholders.
Willingness to contribute to the achievement of organizational goals.
Be solidly versed in the clinical data such that the full range of innovative science, clinical, outcome, economic and value aspects of our client’s products can be appreciated by the healthcare practitioner, formulary member, or payer.
Provide medical support, clinical input, and/or training for internal teams as requested.
Ensures MSL team members update and maintain all required databases with current and complete information.
Ensure proper documentation of KOL Customer interactions and responses to unsolicited requests.
Ensures team member adherence to regulatory and compliance guidelines in all aspects of scientific dissemination of information.
Manages activities within assigned budget.
Assist in publication planning and execution, including manuscripts, abstracts, posters, oral presentations, and congress submissions at the request of Executive Medical Leadership.
Collaborate with investigators, authors, publication agencies, and cross-functional teams to ensure high-quality scientific publications.
Provide assistance as needed in scientific review and editorial oversight of manuscripts, abstracts, and presentation materials to ensure scientific accuracy and consistency.
Monitor field scientific communication effectiveness and continuously improve field dissemination strategies to maximize medical impact and stakeholder engagement.
Overarching responsible for the field medical business objectives.
Oversight of MSL team to ensure client delight and achievement of all program goals.
For new clients, responsible for building and operationalizing launch of team, in collaboration with EVERSANA SVP Medical Deployment and our client’s Medical Leadership.
Interview, select and supervise the activities of the department staff; communicate interpret and discuss with team the company policies and procedures.
Determine job objectives, work methods, and performance standards; review performance relative to departmental objectives discussion appraisal with each employee and performance; authorize and communicate salary changes, promotions, transfers, discipline, and discharge and administer all other personnel actions.
Responsible for monthly metric reporting to EVERSANA and our client.