Global Medical Affairs Leader – Emerging Portfolio Strategy

Location: Barcelona - Spain (3 days working from the office and 2 days working from home)

Introduction to the role

Do you have expertise in, and passion for Medical Affairs in Oncology? Would you like to apply your expertise to impact the Global Medical Affairs Leader — Emerging Portfolio role in a company that follows the science and turns ideas into life-changing medicines? Then AstraZeneca might be the one for you!

At AstraZeneca, we put patients first and strive to meet their unmet needs worldwide. Working here means being entrepreneurial, thinking big and working together to make the impossible a reality. If you are swift to action, confident to lead, willing to collaborate, and curious about what science can do, then you're our kind of person.

As the Global Medical Affairs Lead — Emerging Portfolio Strategy, you will be the medical strategy owner for AstraZeneca's priority early oncology pipeline assets, from Phase I through Phase III Investment Decisions, independently of therapeutic area. This role requires building medical strategy under scientific uncertainty, acting as the primary bridge between Early Development and late-stage Medical Affairs, and enabling cross-functional teams to make better decisions earlier. You will shape evidence generation priorities, lead external expert engagement under disclosure constraints, synthesize early signals into actionable intelligence, and ensure scientific narrative coherence as assets mature across indications and modalities.

The EP GMAL will report to the Head of Emerging Portfolio & Pancreatic Cancer within the Global GI & Emerging Portfolio Medical Team.

Accountabilities

• Lead early asset medical strategy — Serve as the global medical lead for emerging priority pipeline assets from Phase I, holding full accountability for asset-level medical strategy ahead of Phase III Indication Decisions (ID), independently of therapeutic area.

• Bridge early development and late-stage medical affairs — Act as the primary medical interface between Early Development (EDO) and TA/Franchise Medical teams, ensuring continuity of scientific thinking, narrative, and evidence logic across the early-to-late transition.

• Enable cross-functional alignment and early commercial readiness — Provide scientific context and medical insights to Early Assets Commercial, Early Development, Early Publications, and eGPTs to enable strategic clinical development, publication planning, and market shaping.

• Shape evidence generation strategy — Identify and prioritize decision-critical evidence gaps

• Lead external medical partnerships and KEE engagement — Map and engage Key External Experts at the appropriate asset maturity and disclosure stage, running targeted scientific exchange to pressure-test hypotheses, capture clinical insights, and build early scientific advocacy.

• Synthesize internal signals (bioscience, translational, early clinical) with external intelligence into actionable medical insights, translating portfolio-level intelligence into context that downstream teams can act on

• Define and steward the Scientific Narrative — Develop and evolve the asset-level scientific narrative, setting clear guardrails on what can and cannot yet be claimed, and ensuring it matures iteratively as evidence develops through to investment readiness.

• Maintain umbrella scientific consistency across multiple indications and modalities, resolving conflicts early and preventing fragmentation of messaging across cross-TA or cross-indication assets.

Education, Qualifications, Skills and Experience

Essential

• Advanced scientific degree (MD, PhD, PharmD)

• Significant Medical Affairs experience (~10+ years)

• Understanding of drug development and commercialization processes including understanding of outcomes research /payer access issues

• Proven ability to build strategy under scientific uncertainty

• Oncology experience

• Demonstrated cross-functional leadership — influencing R&D, Commercial, and Medical Affairs stakeholders without formal authority

• Track record in evidence generation strategy, scientific narrative development, or portfolio-level medical planning

• Ability to manage multiple projects and products simultaneously to ensure timely, on-target and within budget accomplishment of tasks

• Proven ability to generate, analyze and interpret clinical trial and published data

• Good communication and presentation skills in English

Desirable

• Medical Affairs experience spanning country, regional, and global levels.

• Previous experience in early development medical strategy, pipeline medical affairs, or translational medicine roles

• Experience working across multiple tumor types, modalities, or mechanisms

• Experience navigating multi-indication assets, novel mechanisms of action, or first-in-class compounds

Date Posted

Closing Date

AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity.  We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills.  We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be.  We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics.  We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.