Therapeutic Area Director, Oncology

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas – immunology, oncology, neuroscience, and eye care – and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Tik Tok.

Note : The title of this posting has been modified to reflect the role level and responsibilities, while the internal title remains as Therapeutic Area Head, Oncology.

Joining AbbVie means you will be part of a team of outstanding professionals dedicated to making a remarkable impact on patients' lives. At AbbVie, we conduct ground-breaking science on a global scale every day. AbbVie Canada is one of the Best Workplaces in Canada.

When choosing your career path, choose to be remarkable.

AbbVie’s mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people’s lives across several key therapeutic areas: immunology, oncology, neuroscience, vision care, virology, women’s health , and gastroenterology, in addition to products and services across its Allergan Aesthetics portfolio.

We have an opportunity for a Therapeutic Area Head, Oncology to join our Medical Affairs team. In this role, you will drive medical/ scientific strategic and operational input into medical affairs plans and activities representing the Affiliate in coordination with the Global team. Lead the development and execution of the designated therapeutic area Medical Affairs strategies and tactics while establishing the direction of a team of ‘peer expert’ in Medical Advisor in people manager roles. This position is national in scope and preferably based in Montreal.  

Key responsibilities

• Establish vision, strategy, and goals for the team that are aligned with clinical gaps, medical, and brand team strategies.
• Optimize utilization of resources to lead, develop and coach the team, including overseeing the performance management process, professional development and succession team plans.
• Maintain regulatory and compliance best practises. Allocate resources in a way that delivers results on clinical/ brand team strategies, while protecting AbbVie’s reputation.
• Manage the budget of the relevant therapeutic area (including local clinical studies) as approved in the medical plan.
• Supervise the design of local clinical studies and the review, approval and fulfillment of contract agreements of Investigator Initiated Studies.
• Maintain a continuous relationship with key clinical investigators and key external experts as to the relevant therapeutic area.
• Supervise the execution of Medical Affairs tactics such as satellite symposia, advisory boards, annual consultation plan, publication plan, warranting appropriate medical support to the Commercial Divisions and in agreement with local procedures.
• Ensure medical-scientific updates on products and competitors and provide medical training when requested/necessary.
• Provide medical support to the Pharmacovigilance Unit as to Adverse Events reported in clinical trials on the relevant products.
• Keep all interactions and materials audit ready and conduct regular management checks of the team’s activities.
• Proactively develop, in collaboration with the medical and brand teams, and execute a plan for field-based scientific support for therapeutic areas on marketed products as well as a portfolio pipeline process. Ensure field scientific support across the lifecycle of a product and ongoing analysis of clinical trends to develop key supporting strategies to meet business objectives.
• Responsible for gathering and sharing competitive intelligence (insights) that can provide critical information that could impact our development programs, as well as our marketed products.­­
• Interface with other Therapeutic Area Heads across all Affiliates, to ensure standardization and consistency.
• Look for opportunities to align clinical resources nationally, while minimizing costs and increasing efficiencies.  Responsible for an operating budget.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams on the execution of an established in-field team stakeholder engagement plan.
• Maintain up-to-date scientific knowledge of assigned therapeutic area(s), product(s) uses and key external data.

Education / Experience required

• Doctorate or Medical degree is required.
• Relevant experience with solid knowledge of the biotech/pharmaceutical industry:
• General knowledge on drug development and clinical research in a relevant therapeutic area (minimum of five years)
• Relevant therapeutic area background and experience in oncology (minimum of three years).
• Relevant experience in AbbVie's Therapeutic Area of interest: immunology, neuroscience and specialty will be conidered a strong asset 
• Proven track record in medical leadership, management, coaching individuals & teams, working on multiple brands across various teams (minimum of three years).
• Ability to build strong relationships with external experts and other relevant stakeholders.
• Ability to think and plan strategically (work plans, activities, timetables, targeting) and translate strategies into actionable and realistic medical actions with execution excellence.
• Strong commitment to compliance, scientific quality and integrity.
• Solid working knowledge of health care environment and evolving landscape.
• Demonstrated organizational and analytical skills to set priorities, develop a field work schedule, monitor progress towards goals, and track data, information and activities. Effectively manage budgets to deliver on fiscal commitments.

Essential skills and abilities

• Proficient with Microsoft Office Suite (Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, etc.).
• Must be at ease with technology (the use of various tools/systems to perform day-to-day tasks).
• Travel required about 20-30 % of the time.
• Valid driver’s license and passport.

Key leadership competencies

• In-depth understanding and execution of meaningful strategies and data-based business decisions to exceed business goals.
• Display sound business judgment (having an executive leadership mindset to assess local market and set direction). Ability to predict contingent outcomes from both a customer and competitive perspective.
• Possess knowledge of AbbVie’s therapeutic areas and products to coach team members, who engage in scientific interactions with key stakeholders, external experts, and medical associations.
• Effectively communicate and collaborate with other members/managers to ensure alignment on plans. Clearly understands ways of working and ensure optimal and compliant interactions. Manages conflict in coordination with other members/managers.

AbbVie strives to provide a French working environment for its employees in Quebec. Although as part of its francization program has taken all reasonable steps to avoid imposing the following requirement, advanced amount of knowledge of English / Fluency in English is an essential requirement for the position of TA Lead including, but not limited to, for the following reasons:

1. English speaking employees outside the province of Quebec.
2. English speaking clients outside the province of Quebec.
3. Anglophone region outside the province of Quebec.

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and encourages women, Aboriginal people, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities to apply.

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives, serving our community and embracing diversity and inclusion.  It is AbbVie’s policy to employ qualified persons of the greatest ability without discrimination against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy), physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, status as a protected veteran, or any other legally protected group status.

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