Director, Medical Diagnostics

About AstraZeneca

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.

About the Oncology Business Unit

A dedicated Oncology unit, this is the place to build a world-class career. Here we are always looking to learn more, welcoming the varied opportunities to expand our horizons or develop niche expertise. Embrace the unparalleled access to industry-leading research, technology, and pipeline product launches with a footprint in every region. Coupled with our agility and sharp focus on talent development, there is an exciting opportunity to accelerate a rewarding and meaningful career.

About Gaithersburg

Our Gaithersburg, Maryland facility crafts life-changing medicines for people around the world. This campus employs more than 3,500 specialists in our field and is only a short drive from Washington, DC. This modern and vibrant scientific campus is the home of R&D and Oncology in the US. Here, we play host to some of the most groundbreaking technology and lab spaces, all crafted to encourage collaboration and cross-functional science. We believe employees benefit from being challenged and encouraged at work. We are dedicated to encouraging a culture of inclusion and collaboration.

The Gaithersburg site offers various amenities to help boost efficiency and help keep our employees happy and healthy. This includes a fitness center, employee healthcare clinic, electric vehicle charging stations, dry cleaning, full-service cafeteria and copy center. This is where you’ll find newly designed, activity-based workspaces to suit a variety of working styles while strengthening collaboration between teams.

The Director, of Medical Diagnostics GI– Oncology ensures timely, high-quality input into development and lifecycle plans, to support efficient companion diagnostics/testing solutions to enable efficient treatment throughout the patient journey and to support patient access. This role is within US Medical Affairs supporting the GI/GU Oncology Franchise and is Field based.

An important element of this role is therefore to develop strategic and long-term partnerships with b both internal and external oncology partners and decision-makers in the sophisticated oncology ecosystem including with the core medical teams, development organization, and global medical teams, based on a deep scientific understanding of the testing environment and the pathology of the tumor/micro-environment and the medical and clinical operational issues on the disease and testing pathway, enabling the organization to help develop tailored testing solutions to be developed for the US market.

Equally important, the candidate will partner strategically with several field functional areas across AZ US Oncology including but not limited to Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs), Scientific Project Medical Director (SPMD) team, External Alliances, National Oncology Account Director (NOAD) and precision medicine managers (PMM) for strategic planning and project execution. These external collaborations will be grounded in the strive to drive biomarker testing at select health systems across the United States.

What you’ll do:

• Accountable for the GI medical Dx strategy and lead all aspects of creation and delivery of the Dx plan per indication within the tumor types- Develops the Dx plan of the Coordinated Medical Affairs Plan for each assigned brand ensuring that specific annual objectives and breakthroughs are set to enable the achievement of the longer term medical strategy
• Externally engage health system-level accounts and third parties, gather insights, and define initiatives to support local-level evidence generation to advance screening and early cancer detection. 60% field activity encouraged, with key accounts aligned with the Scientific Project Medical Director team and National Oncology Account Director team.
• Generate diagnostics-related insight to craft US input into the development and regulatory approach for the breast and lung portfolio
• Supervise the scientific and medical landscape and continue to optimize plans for diagnostic-related needs
• Deliver education to internal and external partners
• Support testing by impacting the testing environment
• Lead pharma alliance relationships in support of partnered products
• Identify issues in the current testing landscape and work with external partners to develop solutions to remove or minimize diagnostic barriers to therapy use, e.g., by optimizing testing pathways
• Apply diagnostics-related evidence for medical education activity (e.g., medical evidence, real-world evidence, and epidemiology) and identify evidence gaps for local plans, develop a data generation approach in collaboration with Core Medical Teams, and ensure quality input into data generation approaches/proposals.
• Develop scientific leadership with companion diagnostics partners, advocacy, scientific organizations, and leaders with vision across oncology to help advise and develop outstanding diagnostics capabilities aligned with the medical needs of the portfolio. Identify and collaborate with national diagnostic and clinical opinion leaders and societies to identify, design, and implement appropriate activities to optimize the provision of diagnostics.
• Remove barriers to testing through collaborative partnerships with diagnostic companies, lab networks, Key opinion leaders (KOLs)s, and Health Care Professionals (HCPs)

Essential Requirements:

• Sophisticated medical degree (MD, PhD); MD board-certified pathologist a plus
• 3+ years of experience in healthcare care delivery; including US experience and preferably oncology diagnostic or clinical lab experience,
• Past pharmaceutical company experience working in a matrix environment is a requirement
• Experience with diagnostic test launch planning and evidence-generating efforts to support diagnostic test adoption

Preferred Requirements

• Proven experience with a broad base of external authorities including prescribers, payors, and providers. A track record of effective management of decision-making bodies and governance
• An understanding of the diagnostic FDA environment, and clinical laboratory practices including CLIA lab requirements and test implementation
• Proven track record of critical thinking, judgment, and influencing skills, Strong leadership attributes to set direction, generate dedication, balance short and long-term needs, constructively resolve issues
• Proven demonstration of effective cross-functional project team leadership
• Ability to lead and influence through change
• Positive relationship and collaboration skills

Why AstraZeneca?

• At AstraZeneca when we see an opportunity for change, we seize it and make it happen, because any opportunity no matter how small, can be the start of something big. Delivering life-changing medicines is about being ambitious - finding those moments and recognizing their potential. Join us on our journey of building a new kind of organization to reset expectations of what a bio-pharmaceutical company can be. This means we’re opening new ways to work, groundbreaking methods, and bringing unexpected teams together. Interested? Come and join our journey. Are you already envisioning yourself joining our team? Good, because we can’t wait to hear from you.

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.