Director, HEOR Field Liason

General Scope and Summary

Sage Therapeutics is searching for a creative, resourceful, integrative thinker for an important role that is responsible to serve as a primary resource for strategic scientific engagement with assigned payer organizations and formulary decision-making entities to demonstrate the value of Sage’s approved products. Engagements will include communicating approved scientific, medical, financial, and pharmacoeconomic data that will be shared with formulary decision makers, pharmacy directors, medical directors, their advisors, and similar entities making or influencing market access decisions. In collaboration with Sage internal stakeholders and where appropriate, the incumbent will strategically engage customers regarding value-based arrangements, partnered research opportunities, and other collaborations that will further establish and demonstrate value of Sage’s approved products, in alignment with Sage’s mission. In addition, the incumbent will actively convey and share important customer insights with the greater Sage HEOR team to inform strategy and resource development for approved and pipeline products. 

Roles and Responsibilities

• Concentrate activities on specific entities which may include: national and/or regional health plans, State Medicaid, specialty pharmacy, PBM, managed care, integrated delivery networks, and other healthcare systems.

• Develop and maintain strategic, sustainable payer relationships and engage them in comprehensive scientific, health economic, epidemiology, and patient-reported outcomes data.

• Disseminate scientific data to demonstrate the value of Sage approved products to payers/population health decision makers/hospital formularies to inform appropriate access to treatment; to include appropriate coverage policies and authorization criteria.

• Collaborate, as appropriate, with other customer-facing teams to provide comprehensive customer support and high-level strategic engagement.

• Leverage and disseminate approved scientific, medical, financial, and healthcare economic data.

• Collaborate, as appropriate, with healthcare professionals, payers/hospitals in partnered research projects to generate and evaluate real-world evidence, outcomes, and effectiveness as well as other health economic studies.

• Strategically engage customers in exploring clinical endpoints for value-based agreements and partnerships that allow access to approved Sage products to appropriate patients while mitigating financial risk to the customer.

• Act as a conduit between the external payer environment and the Sage HEOR in-house team, ensuring activities are robust in filling critical success factors and evidence gaps from a payer perspective.

• Build and maintain technical and clinical expertise across therapeutic areas to engage in deep scientific discussions.

• Engage in continuous learning within the therapeutic area they represent.

• Attend appropriate scientific meetings, conduct routine literature searches, and communicate regularly with each other to assure that the entire group benefits from individual learning whenever it is relevant.

• Support regional and national managed care/healthcare systems congresses.

• Collaborate with Legal and Compliance departments to establish and follow processes for compliant, proactive communication and scientific exchange with payers/population health decision makers/hospital formularies, and to ensure that all other activities undertaken by the field-based HEOR team comply with applicable laws, regulations, and Sage policies.

Experience, Education and Specialized Knowledge and Skills

Must thrive working in a fast-paced, innovative environment while remaining flexible, proactive, resourceful, and efficient. Must have excellent interpersonal skills, the ability to develop important relationships with key stakeholders, good conflict management and negotiation skills, and the ability to analyze complex issues to develop relevant and realistic plans, programs, and recommendations. Must have a demonstrated ability to translate strategy into action, excellent analytical skills, and an ability to communicate complex issues in a simple way and to orchestrate plans to resolve issues and mitigate risks.

Basic Qualifications

• Minimum of a Master’s degree in public health, health economics, or a related field.

• 8+ years of HEOR experience, including at least 3 years of field-based experience. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree (Doctorate) in public health, health services research, health economics, epidemiology, medicine, pharmacy, or a related field is strongly preferred.

• 10-12 years of HEOR experience is preferred.

• Strong payer relationships within national and regional accounts is a plus.

• Demonstrated ability in executing HEOR (collaborative) studies for field-related activities with proven ability to anticipate key customers’ needs with sufficient lead time for execution of tactical plans.

• This role is a field-based position, and the ideal candidate must be able to travel approximately 70% of the time, including the ability to travel overnight and occasionally on weekends for congresses/meetings.

• Must possess strong scientific and clinical knowledge, as well as excellent presentation and teaching skills.

• Comprehensive understanding of the US payer market landscape.

• Strong team player that has a customer service approach and is solution-oriented.

• Attention to detail and the ability to work individually, within a multi-disciplinary team, as well as with external partners and vendors.

• Possesses strong written and verbal communication skills.

• Embrace our Core Values: Put People First, Improve Lives, Cultivate Curiosity, Do Right, and Forge New Pathways.

• Excitement about the vision and mission of Sage.

All Sage new hires will be required to provide documentation that they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or, if not, that they are legally entitled to an accommodation due to a medical condition or a sincerely held religious belief.  Requests for accommodation will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and Sage will consider, among other things, whether the proposed accommodation would create an undue hardship.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other factors prohibited by law.

EEO is the Law

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We value our relationships with professional recruitment firms. To protect the interests of all parties, and given the large volume of inquiries received from third-party placement agencies, we are not able to respond to all agency inquiries. We do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than directly from candidates for current or future positions. Submission of unsolicited resumes in advance of a signed agreement between our company and a placement agency does not create an implied obligation and, if an unsolicited candidate represented by a placement agency is hired, we are not obligated to pay a fee. Only approved recruitment firms will be allowed to provide services to Sage Therapeutics, Inc.