Director, Patient Science

At AstraZeneca, we recognise that patients are people first and should be at the centre of everything we do in specific and measurable ways. From discovery science through clinical trials to prevention, awareness, diagnosis, treatment and post-treatment, we are evolving the way we work to address the current and future needs of patients. We are prioritizing investments in partnerships and programs to improve health equity and clinical trial diversity with the aim of delivering life changing therapies to people living with Cancer, Respiratory and CVRM conditions. Our mission is to ensure that the clinical trial patient populations reflect the disease population for whom the medicine is being developed; ensuring that the right medicines reach the right people at the earliest time.

The Director, Patient Science, our US based champion for Global Equity and Diversity Engagement in Clinical Excellence, will support our company’s dedication to working closely with Patients, Patient Associations and Healthcare Professionals. The role will be based within the Chief Medical Office (CMO) and is responsible for U.S. Equity and Diversity Engagement. The CMO team drives patient focused drug development with a particular focus on driving health equity and diversity throughout the clinical development process. The successful candidate will lead engagement in the U.S. to address barriers to clinical trial participation among historically underrepresented groups, and co-develop signature programs alongside communities and those who provide their care.

Based on-site in Gaithersburg, MD, New York City or Waltham MA, this role will build the development of long-term, collaborative relationships between AZ colleagues and our external partners, ensuring areas of commonality and aligned priorities are identified and appropriately developed. You will ensure patients’ voices are heard directly within the company on Health Equity and Diversity within Clinical Trials.

Main Duties And Responsibilities

• Develop AZ's Patient Equity and Diversity engagement strategy in close collaboration with therapy area leadership and cross functional colleagues in communications, medical and policy.
• Implement signature initiatives and programs that engage historically underrepresented patients and communities to address systemic patient barriers in clinical trial participation
• Provide mentorship and expertise to global/regional/market colleagues in developing relationships with external partners
• Identify and codify approach to engagement for globally to enable the assessment of funding / grant requests / partnership opportunities
• Maintain key relationships, schedule regular meetings and lead face to face/ virtual touchpoints with leading patient associations, networks, and community groups as well as academic institutions and medical consortiums
• Maintain regular engagement with regional, country, and cross-functional colleagues (including Therapeutic Area leaders, Medical Affairs, Government Affairs and Policy, Communications, Medical, R&D, Regulatory, Legal and Compliance), cascading and implementing key programmes
• Ensure appropriate pull- through of individual patient insights, perspectives and testimonials for internal and external activities including leadership meetings, launches, and external partner engagements
• Build and support third party commissioning of external resources, peer reviewed literature in the area of Equity and Diversity within Clinical Trials, in partnership with medical and policy colleagues.
• Experience in patient-relevant research (e.g., PRO research) and other patient-centric evidence generation methodologies including analysing patient experiences and business analytics
• Adoption and refinement of AstraZeneca’s relevant standard-operating-procedures and processes to progress Patient Equity and Diversity in Clinical Development
• Support CMO team to embed a Patient-Focused culture and related practices across drug development process from discovery to delivery