Head of Policy Evidence, BioPharmaceuticals

At AstraZeneca (AZ), we aim to be a leading partner with governments and public and private providers to help healthcare systems around the world become more sustainable and resilient. Working in collaboration across public, academic and private sectors, we have ambitious objectives to advance the evidence, blueprints, innovative programmes and policies to drive transformations in care. Central to this work is a significant uplift in our capability to generate evidence through partnerships and ultimately argumentation to inform and support governments and healthcare system policymakers’ decision making.

The Head of Policy Evidence, BioPharmaceuticals is a newly formed position to lead AZ’s health policy evidence capability. The role is accountable for 1) delivering a portfolio of strategic studies to support government and healthcare system policymaking in specific priority areas of focus and 2) building the organization’s health policy evidence capability.

The role will lead the design, commissioning and oversight of evidence generation for priority policy programs. This includes collaborating with a diverse range of external experts spanning academia, industry, scientific societies, governments, NGOs, tech companies, ecosystem builders and members of public-private partnerships. This also entails close coordination within AZ, including partnership with the BioPharmaceuticals Policy & Advocacy team as well other members of Corporate Affairs, Global Medical and other cross-functional partners at global, regional and in-country levels.

Areas of evidence generation expected to include:

• The value of and models for resilient healthcare systems including the health system, economic, social and environmental impact of early detection, diagnosis and management of chronic disease.

• The value of innovative medicines from a broader societal perspective e.g. including macro-economic, fiscal, environmental impacts and as well as impacts on other important system attributes such as equity and resilience.

• Real world data studies which deliver the timely, relevant local evidence to support major policy changes in therapy areas, key markets, and their implementation at scale (e.g. national policies to implement high quality COPD care; regional/national policies to step-change implementation of early detection policies for cardio-renal diseases such as CKD. Includes harnessing the opportunities of new RWD technologies and visualisation platforms to analyse current clinical practices and treatment.

• Quantifying the impact of existing policy barriers on patients, healthcare systems, society (e.g. economic impacts) and market growth in priority therapy areas.

• Contributing to and providing policy input into the BioPharmaceutical Evidence Powerhouse and Practice Change@Scale agendas across global, regional, and country organisations.

The Head of Policy Evidence will publish/present evidence in relevant external journals and meetings where appropriate and share insights internally to inform business planning.

A key accountability for the role is the establishment and leadership of a best practice network of AstraZeneca colleagues from Global Medical, market access and policy teams to accelerate the Company’s capabilities in best practice evidence generation to inform policymaking. The role is expected to be an internal functional leader and opinion leader externally, although the role does not currently include direct report accountabilities. This work includes the development of global framework to support evidence generation for policy audience across BioPharmaceutical disease areas.

The role sits within AstraZeneca’s BioPharmaceutical Medical Evidence Organisation as part of a of team responsible for building an Evidence Powerhouse supporting AZ medicines across their lifecycle needs. The role reports to the VP Medical Evidence with a dotted line deployment to the VP, BioPharmaceuticals, Global Corporate Affairs.

Typical Accountabilities:

• Develop AZ’s BioPharmaceutical strategy and annual plan for policy evidence generation and capability building, including evidence plans for specific AZ priority programmes from our disease areas, healthcare system resilience (PHSSR) platform and initiatives to support funding for innovation.

• In coordination with the BBU Policy & Advocacy team and market teams and other policy leads where relevant, design, commission and oversee delivery of a portfolio of priority evidence programmes; includes engaging with expert external partners and thought-leaders, including academics, public-private partnerships and other key data/Real World Data initiatives. Evidence policy likely to include economic studies, real world data studies and modelling studies.

• Shepherd priority evidence programmes through to publication/presentation whether through third party platforms or peer review journals. Serve as a publication author for peer review-quality publications and presentations where appropriate.

• Maximise data/technical opportunities to advance policy evidence goals. Includes leveraging AZ data platforms, analytics and evolving technology platforms where possible.

• Represent the interests of AZ in the execution of the AZ policy needs including investment negotiations with partners and key strategic vendors and representation on key external committees.

• Establish and lead AZ’s network of colleagues from Global Medical, market access and policy teams to accelerate adoption of best practice evidence generation to inform policy development.

• Establish best practice examples and ways of working for priority approaches to policy evidence generation. Drive institutional understanding, capability development and sharing of best practice.

Is a member of the BioPharma Medical Evidence Leadership Team and the Global Policy and Advocacy Leadership Team.  Serves as a strategic advisor to the Global Corporate Affairs Leadership Team and the Vision for Transforming Care Steering Committee.

Essential Skills/Experience:

• Master’s degree in relevant field (eg Medicine, Public Health, Health Economics or Political Sciences/Public Policy) with experience in public health/healthcare system policy development/administration.

• 10+ years’ experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology or relevant health care industry or public health body, ideally including experience in medical affairs or evidence development. Therapeutic and disease area knowledge and knowledge of drug development and life cycle management.

• Expertise in developing different types of evidence across the spectrum of evidence hierarchy, and strategic understanding which evidence is required to advance the various types of policies health reforms, inclusive of primary and secondary data, economic studies, real world data and health economic modelling among others approaches.

• Strong expertise in building evidence packages in collaboration with public and private partners such as industry, healthcare systems/providers, NGOs, academic institutions, external expert, scientific bodies and public/private data custodians.

• Track record of external influencing, including public speaking and publications in high-quality journals on topics relevant to evidence exploration to advance the interests of the business.

• Track record for leading and managing complex programs and capability development in in a global, matrix environment.

• Effective project and budget management experience.

When we put unexpected teams in the same room, we unleash bold thinking with the power to inspire life-changing medicines. In-person working gives us the platform we need to connect, work at pace and challenge perceptions. That’s why we work, on average, a minimum of three days per week from the office. But that doesn't mean we’re not flexible. We balance the expectation of being in the office while respecting individual flexibility. Join us in our unique and ambitious world.

Why AstraZeneca?

A place to be at the forefront, we use our unique position as medical leaders across our enterprise and the healthcare ecosystem to shape the future of Healthcare. There's so much opportunity here as we continue to grow - no better place to improve patients' lives and develop with AstraZeneca. A critical part of AstraZeneca's success, we provide medical leadership across the whole product lifecycle - from advising on Research & Development investment decisions, to leading pre-launch scientific efforts and accelerating evidence based healthcare changes in the real world.

Accelerate change through partnerships. Here we accelerate change through building partnerships. It's by nurturing relationships with external experts that we can do something truly meaningful. We are always broadening our relationships with thought leaders to include policy makers and patient groups.

Ready to make a difference? Apply now!

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.

AstraZeneca requires all US employees to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 but will consider requests for reasonable accommodations as required by applicable law.