【Alexion】Associate Director, Patient Advocacy

This is what you will do:

Associate Director, Patient Advocacy Japan plays a key role in coordinating engagement and collaboration with patient advocacy groups in Japan across the company’s rare disease portfolio.  This role will develop and implement strategic programs and patnerships and contribute to championing the patient perspective within the company. This role provides a special opportunity to engage with patients, caregivers and advocacy organizations to better understand, and positively impact, the patient and caregiver experience.

You will be responsible for:

Accountable For:

• Demonstrate a patient-centric mindset, empathy and integrity.
• Build, maintain and enhance relationships with select patient advocacy organiations actoss the different therapeutic areas of interest to Alexion and other patient advocacy and relevant allied stakeholder organizations; identify emerging area partners.
• Serve as a primary point of contact for select patient advocacy groups and work cross functionally to coordinate and manage communications to ensure productive and constructive partnerships.
• Collaborate with cross-functional internal teams to bring the patient voice into decision making.
• Provide guidance and share patient perspectives and insights with internal stakeholders and the leadership team to facilitate informed decision-making and enhance patient-centered strategies.
• Lead and support patient advocacy engagement in R&D and support clinical trial awareness and patient identification initiatives across the portfolio to support rapid trial enrollment and execution
• Support our engagement with rare disease and other umbrella patient groups on policy advocacy initiatives working in close partnership with our Government Affairs team.
• Work closely with Communication team and contribute to improving corporate reputation by bringing patient perspectives into corporate initiatives.
• Educate internal stakeholders about the role of patient advocacy organizations, champion patient voices and experience at the corporate level and ensure that patient perspective are reflected in our thinking and approaches.
• Keep good communication with Legal, compliance and promotion audit office to be aligned with relevant laws and regulations to appropriately engage with patient advocacy groups.
• Be responsible for the development of annual patient advocacy and patient engagement strategy and execution per therapeutic areas.
• Managing and tracking PAG sponsorships & other key processes in Alexion
• Manage multiple projects while maintaining an understanding of national and global priorities, coordinate projects
• Maintain, manage and update local guidelines, SOPs and processes
• Manage local functional budget and oversee grant and sponsorship distribution across the cluster.
• Work as a member of industry association and work with patients to support opportunities and activities that address patient needs and policy proposals.
• Management of vendors and partners on assigned projects including tracking progress to SOWs
• Collaborate with US and international Patient Advocacy teams to align and build out strategy for above

You will need to have:

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent in a disciplines related to life sciences is preferred.
• 5-8 years experience in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry
• Experience in the development and management of patient engagement activities preferred
• Solid knowledge of the medicine’s R&D process and opportunities for patients and patient advocacy groups to contribute to such processes
• Demonstrate enterprise agility and can confidently gain credibility quickly with management across all parts of the organization
• Ability to establish excellent internal and external relationships
• Fluent in English, written and spoken.
• Excellent interpersonal skills across countries, cultures and organizational functions
• Experience in working with vendors, inclusive of managing budgets and timelines

Willingness to do administrative work as well

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.