Specialist, US Medical Affairs Congress Planner

Astellas Pharma • Northbrook, IL

4d • $125,090 - $178,700 • Hybrid

About The Position

This position is based in Northbrook, Illinois. Hybrid work from certain states may be permitted in accordance with Astellas’ Responsible Flexibility Guidelines. Candidates interested in hybrid work are encouraged to apply. The Specialist, US Medical Excellence will be a team member of the US Medical Education and Communication team focusing specifically on the medical aspect of congresses and external meetings. The Specialist is accountable for leading MA-US congress strategy and scientific engagement planning, ensuring Astellas has an aligned, compliant, high-impact presence at priority congresses ensuring medical independence. This role builds and operationalizes a future-forward congress strategy that strengthens scientific exchange, elevates MA credibility, enables Field Medical, and ensures coordination across internal stakeholders. This position owns MA-US congress strategy and ensures a congress program is well-governed, measurable, execution-ready, and aligned to pipeline evolution and medical priorities.

Requirements

• Advanced degree preferred (PharmD, PhD; bachelor's degree required with strong relevant experience
• 6–10+ years’ experience in congress planning, medical affairs, scientific communications, or field medical enablement
• Strong understanding of congress governance and compliance expectations in a Medical Affairs environment
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex, cross-functional operating models and timelines
• Strong vendor, project, and stakeholder management capabilities
• Strong project management and cross-functional coordination skills

Nice To Haves

• Deep understanding of congress strategy, scientific engagement models, and MA governance
• Strong compliance mindset; ability to build guardrails into workstreams and documentation
• High executive presence with strong decision-making and prioritization skills
• Cross-functional leadership and influence without direct authority
• Strong operational planning and risk management discipline
• Ability to build future-forward approaches

Responsibilities

• Support MA-US external engagement planning across priority scientific forums, external meetings, and congresses
• Ensure external engagement plans align with MA-US objectives, scientific priorities, and stakeholder needs
• Drive year-round readiness by applying a consistent approach to external engagement planning, execution coordination, and outcomes capture
• Strategic external meeting planning (beyond logistics), ensuring MA-US engagement objectives are defined and measurable
• Coordination of MA-US external engagement activities at external meetings, including scientific exchange enablement and presence planning
• Stakeholder engagement readiness, including ensuring the right medical resources, roles, and support materials are aligned for external engagement
• Engagement optimization, leveraging post-meeting insights, feedback, and metrics to improve future external engagement effectiveness
• Internal alignment and visibility, ensuring MA-US leaders and stakeholders have clarity on external engagement plans, priorities, and expected outcomes.
• Lead planning across MA-US stakeholders to ensure congress activities are aligned and non-duplicative: medical communications and content planning, field medical engagement readiness, development/pipeline alignment where applicable, non-promotional coordination as appropriate
• Enable strong decision-making around what MA should (and should not) do at congresses, using a risk-aware, value-based approach
• Coordinate congress readiness activities supporting scientific exchange including field enablement needs and content access pathways, consistent scientific narrative alignment, congress playbooks and role clarity
• Serve as a connector across internal teams to drive integrated execution while preserving compliance guardrails
• Serve as a congress governance SME, ensuring MA congress presence adheres to internal policies and documentation expectations, industry standards for scientific exchange, appropriate boundaries across medical vs other activities, audit-ready documentation and approvals
• Partner closely with the Medical Education & Communication steam to ensure congress workflows, templates, tracking, and evidence are complete and inspection-ready
• Align with CEE team and any applicable cross-functional stakeholders to collaborate on congress execution planning and vendor engagement where required, including congress workback schedules and milestone tracking, deliverables coordination across stakeholders, risk tracking, issue escalation, and rapid resolution
• Ensure congress execution is consistent, high-quality, and aligned to the strategy and plan
• Define congress success measures and establish consistent reporting practices across priority congresses
• Drive continuous improvement through after-action reviews, stakeholder feedback, and performance insights
• Build institutional knowledge via congress playbooks, best practices, and repeatable frameworks
• Drive efficiency while protecting scientific quality and stakeholder needs
• Support ad-hoc MA-US initiatives tied to scientific engagement and communications planning
• Provide leadership support to emerging, high-priority congress opportunities or rapid-response scientific needs

Benefits

• Medical, Dental and Vision Insurance
• Generous Paid Time Off options, including Vacation and Sick time, plus national holidays including year-end shut down
• 401(k) match and annual company contribution
• Company paid life insurance
• Annual Corporate Bonus and Quarterly Sales Incentive for eligible positions
• Long Term Incentive Plan for eligible positions
• Company-paid fleet vehicle for eligible positions
• Referral bonus program

What This Job Offers

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