Executive Director, Head of Scientific Communication & Exchange Center of Excellence

BioMarin (BMRN) is the world leader in delivering therapeutics that provide meaningful advances to patients who live with serious and life-threatening rare genetic diseases. We target diseases that lack effective therapies and affect relatively small numbers of patients, many of whom are children. These conditions are often inherited, difficult to diagnose, progressively debilitating and have few, if any, treatment options.  

BMRN GMAF offers scientific and clinical expertise to our products through the direction and planning of scientific communication and exchange, support of education and research, liaising with the medical community, response to incoming inquiries about BMRN products and trials, and leadership of the execution of BioMarin sponsored studies.  

The SC&E COE has accountability for translating and disseminating data from our products and disease areas that consistently positions the value of our drugs through non-promotional, evidence-based scientific and educational programs that shapes the market and closes knowledge gaps.

Summary Description:

The Executive Director (ED) is accountable for the direction of all major aspects of SC&E COE activities in alignment with each programs vision and strategies. The ED provides direction for program leads to establish the strategic execution of publication and content development activities in alignment with GMAF’s purpose and utilizing our core capabilities.

The ED of SC&E ensures the teams are focused on strategic alignment with the program SMARTs and management of global communication and publication related activities, including: 

• Establishes goals and objectives in alignment with those established for GMAF and WWRD
• Align publication and congress activities and scientific messaging with program goals and priorities 
• Supports teams with content development to support SMARTs
• Sets direction for teams; Assess and manages resource needs 
• Oversight for team budget and financial planning
• Guide teams on identification of risks, mitigation strategies and resolution of issues
• Oversight for internal document review processes and procedures

This role may chair or represent GMAF on a selected cross-functional working groups or governance committees and is a member of the GMAF extended leadership team.

Key Responsibilities:

Leadership:

The ED leads a group of scientific communications experts globally who are responsible for the development of content for manuscripts, abstracts, posters, presentations, scientific messaging, plain language summaries, regulatory documents, slide decks and Medical Information documents.

The ED is accountable for the development of teams to ensure they are continuing to expand their scientific acumen, have a strong understanding of publication guidelines, and work in a compliant and consistent manner according to established process and procedures.

The ED will mentor teams on influence, strategy, and collaboration ensuring they are well equipped to lead publication planning activities; can take a forward-looking approach in the publication process; feel secure in the identification of risks and recommend mitigations; work at multiple levels within BMRN with confidence.

Management of Resources:

The ED has accountability for SC&E’s budget, forecasting and long-range financial planning activities and resource planning and adherence to contracting, PO set up and timely monthly accruals.

The ED guides the facilitation of various financial exercises (budget development, forecasting, accruals, and variance investigation); collect and collate financial data for SC&E and provide guidance to teams using reports & analysis. 

The ED provides insight to Finance on SC&E monthly and quarterly performance vs budget and forecast analysis. Lead discussions with SC&E managers on workforce planning to ensure optimal resource utilization for LRP.

Planning and Execution:

The ED has oversight of teams for the planning and development of content that addresses identified gaps and documents with the foci on scientific research, clinical study outcomes, health economic and outcomes research, value and access issues and stakeholder education. 

The ED provides direction to teams as they coordinate efforts and scientific content to be shared both in person and virtually, and through poster/presentations at scientific congresses.  Support for development of manuscripts, abstracts, posters, presentations, scientific messaging, plain language summaries, regulatory documents, slide decks and Medical Information documents to ensure they meet the highest standards of medical / scientific integrity, adhere to authorship, and document development guidelines, and achieve completion per planned timelines.

The ED ensures teams facilitate the development, internal review process, documentation, and storage of scientific documents enterprise-wide through the maintenance of the associated systems, committees, and resources needed for this.

The ED sets the direction on the conduct of literature analyses with ongoing review of new literature and scientific development related to assigned products and create or update scientific content accordingly and provide alerts to notify colleagues of newly released documents of importance and verify correct and consistent referencing of all scientific content. The ED supports teams with oversight of the company digital library and maintenance of copyright.

Competencies:

• The ED is expected to exhibit mastery-level competence in GMAF core competencies, including communication, leadership, strategy planning and problem solving. For example:  
• Articulates alignment between GMAF initiatives and corporate strategy such that employees, at all levels, fully understand their roles in achieving success 
• Actively models and encourages open, honest, and clear communication across teams and functions 
• Holds teams accountable for goal achievement by creating a shared sense of ownership for success  
• Identifies internal and external best practices, trends, developments, or alternative approaches that can be leveraged for strategy development 
• Communicates and reinforces purpose and links between GMAF activities and BioMarin corporate strategy and financial results 
• Understands the scope of the problem and/or solution, as well as the span of control for the individual / team and advises appropriate course of action  
• Recognizes cross-functional, company-wide, or vendor-based impact of issues and opportunities and appropriately considers input and implications in solution development
• Establishes a team focus on excellence in customer service and commitment to high quality work and responsiveness   
• Actively manages project trade-offs among scope, timelines, budget/resources, and quality and drives team toward accountability in these areas 
• Skilled at identifying areas where additional process development is needed and defining new processes using best practices, tools, and methodologies 

Career Development:

BioMarin offers comprehensive career development programming, including guidance, targeted training opportunities, and mentorship programs. A career development pathway for GMAF has been defined and is available to employees of BioMarin. 

People Management:

The ED will manage several senior level direct reports who have oversight for various program specific teams within the SC&E COE.  This position leads a large global team of full time and temporary resources.

Education and Experience:

• MS in life or health sciences, PhD preferred
• Strong knowledge and experience in good publication practices, medical writing, and maintenance of related analytics
• 10 years of relevant experience in pharma, biotech, or publication agencies with increasing levels of responsibility and leadership 
• 10 years line management experience preferred

Contacts:

Internal: 

All Global Medical Affairs teams include GMAF LT, Human Resources, Commercial / Market Access, Clinical Operations, Market Planning, Regulatory Affairs, Regulatory Patient Engagement, Legal / Compliance, Corporate Communications, Pharmacovigilance, Data Sciences

External:  

Vendors, suppliers, KOLs