Director, Patient Support Communications, US Kidney

Role Summary

Director, Patient Support Communications, US Kidney. Lead the development and execution of patient support communications for Kidney therapies, building and managing a team to provide patient and healthcare provider communications, resources, and services throughout potential launch and ongoing operations.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for launch preparation/execution of all HCP- and patient/caregiver-facing educational resources, including the development of auto-injector materials, and foundational tactics
• Develop capabilities for digital engagement tools including resources for PSP website
• Develop resources to help support treatment initiation and adherence for Kidney patient community
• Collaborate with the Head of case management to ensure appropriate and timely tools and resources are provided to care managers and PSS team
• Build the patient support communications team from the ground up to enable the organization to provide necessary interactions and service
• Develop and execute research/discovery plans to understand patient/caregiver needs, to close knowledge gaps and validate support offerings (may include quant/qual research, ad boards, IDIs, segmentation)
• Partner with the Patient Services Operations Team to identify communication touchpoints and engagement channel mix regarding distribution network and ensuring appropriate communications are available for HCPs and patients
• Clearly understand and compliantly support the needs of healthcare providers and patients undergoing treatment
• Work with agency partner to develop corresponding tactics and bring through legal/medical/regulatory review (i.e., Promotional Review Committees)
• Define metrics for tactics; implement measurement plans & optimize as needed, in partnership with Patient Services Analytics Team
• Support annual brand planning efforts to think forward about program evolutions
• Create a culture of compliant cross-functional collaboration; examples of key internal stakeholders will be marketing, IT, legal, sales, and compliance
• Recruit, hire and develop a highly motivated team. Act as thought partner to other team members in the organization

Qualifications

• Deep experience in the legal, medical and regulatory environment and application to branded/unbranded initiatives, including understanding of patient support guardrails
• Strong analytical skills, ability to derive insights from customer engagements and apply them to tactical creation
• Experience formally leading a team
• Contributes to Vertex’s culture of compliance by focusing on ethics and integrity in all interactions and ability to role model the expected behavior for the team
• Demonstrated ability to effectively collaborate across multiple teams
• Ability to manage and direct agency partners, including budget ownership
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to connect with senior leaders as well as more diverse and large audiences
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, results-driven, environment, with the ability to multi-task and prioritize the workload of the team

Education

• Bachelor’s Degree
• 10+ years of marketing or related fields, with direct patient marketing experience and supervisory/management experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience
• Experience launching a product for a rare disease/underserved patient population
• Experience in Kidney therapeutic landscape (preferred)
• Prior people leadership