Associate Director - US & Global Rare Disease Market Engagement - DHH

About the role

This role will reside within the Digital Human Health (DHH) Integrated Specialty Market Engagement Team. This team provides strategic thought-partnership to US & Global commercial stakeholders through understanding brand strategy, co-creating DHH demand and associated business requirements aligned to business priorities. The Integrated Market Engagement team quarterbacks demand fulfillment and leads the activation of DHH capabilities, products and services.

The Associate Director will be responsible for developing and communicating data-driven and actionable insights that drive greater customer and market understanding to inform launch & go-to market strategies and help meet in-line commercial objectives.

The individual in this role will be an independent contributor or lead a small team, supporting commercial insight and analytics needs for US and Global marketing teams. The person will have demonstrated consistently strong leadership skills, an ability to work objectively and deal well with ambiguity and strong partnership skills. They will empower a growth mindset and inspire a culture of continual learning. This role will require interfacing and collaborating with many teams requiring strong communication skills.

The preferred candidate will have an entrepreneurial spirit, consultative and strategic mindset, experience in pulmonary hypertension & technology (AI, agentic etc.), and a demonstrated record of producing actionable insights from analytics. The person should be able to identify the data, analytics and research needs to define, enable, and inform commercial strategies of our brand and business leaders. The selected candidate should have a good understanding of US and ex-US data landscape, commercial analytics capabilities, and technology, including application of GenAI to drive effectiveness.

The individual who will thrive in this role will be motivated by developing a deep appreciation of pharma secondary data sources and possess an ability to define and translate objectives and business questions into analytical problems that require advanced and scalable solutions that produce actionable insights.

Primary Responsibilities

• Translate business needs and priorities to build analytical plans that answer business questions by providing actionable insights. Effectively communicate advanced analytics to stakeholders to inform business decisions.
• Communicate & collaborate effectively with cross functional teams with competencies in market research, forecasting, commercial analytics, data science, customer engagement, data strategy, population health, competitive insights, marketing operations, medical & clinical backgrounds.
• Analyze data across disparate databases/sources (including claims/EMR Data and other sources) to develop insights that inform commercial business strategies.
• Stay current with industry trends and advancements in analytical methodologies to bring new ideas forward (including application of GenAI) that will enhance analytic capabilities of the organization.
• Derive actionable business insights from various data sources, develop clear data story, and communicate effectively to business stakeholders.
• Lead and mentor a team of business analysts (on-shore and off-shore), providing guidance on best practices in problem solving, analytics, modeling etc through the scope of a project.

Education Requirements

• BS (or equivalent) in Data Science, Mathematics, Economics, Computer Science, Statistics, Decision Science, Marketing, Engineering, Public Health, or equivalent scientific/ commercial discipline.

Required Experience and Skills

• 5+ years of relevant experience delivering complex analytical projects in the pharmaceutical, biotech, consulting, or healthcare industry.
• Knowledge in mining patient medical claims/EMR data with a strategic mindset and proven record of being able to produce actionable business insights that drive positive commercial results.
• Self-motivated, proactive mindset, and ability to work independently.
• Story-telling and executive presence with senior leaders.
• Effective interpersonal skills, communication skills, and stakeholder management, including experience collaborating in a matrixed organization and ability to align stakeholders on data-driven decisions.
• Strong business acumen and consultative skills, with proven ability to comprehend business processes and commercial strategies in detail and translate these into detailed business standards/questions that power analytics.
• Effective organizational and project management skills to work effectively across the organization and manage a team of business analysts and data scientists efficiently and effectively.
• Innovative thinking with affinity toward experimentation and appropriate risk-taking, including curiosity about how agentic AI and automation can enhance commercial analytics and insight generation.
• Awareness of the opportunities, limitations, and responsible use of AI (including agentic AI) in a regulated environment (e.g., data privacy, validation of AI-generated outputs).
• Prior hands-on experience working with healthcare data especially EMR/EHR, Claims Data (i.e. IQVIA APLD, Komodo) and various data offerings.
• Travel may be required <20%.
• Ability to develop efficient programming code and software assets that provide advanced analytical functionality.
• Proven data science experience leveraging advanced statistical methods, Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing (NLP) modeling and model evaluation is a plus.
• Knowledge of both machine learning and descriptive algorithms/modeling using such languages as Python, R studio, SAS, SQL etc.
• Understands the business context, challenge, limitation, constraints and goals to effectively match the capability of the statistical and mathematical and M/L approaches to the business, scientific and operational challenge.

Preferred Experience and Skills

• Domain knowledge in Pulmonary Hypertension, specifically as it relates to data analytics.
• MBA, MS or PhD degree is a plus.

Required Skills

Advanced Analytics, Analytics Insights, Business Decisions, Business Insights, Data Analysis, Data Science, Executive Presence, Global Marketing Strategy, Insight Generation, Leadership, Power Analysis, Problem Solving, Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension, Python (Programming Language), Sourcing and Procurement, Strategic Planning

Preferred Skills

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US and Puerto Rico Residents Only

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• The primary location for this posting is: USA - Pennsylvania - North Wales (Upper Gwynedd)

Pay and benefits

Where required by law, the compensation range for this role is provided below.

The salary range for the primary location of this role is

$156,900.00 - $247,000.00

This range reflects the Company's reasonable expectation of the base salary applicable to this role at the time of posting. An employee's position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs. The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days.

Additional location(s): Please note the salary range above applies to the Primary Location of the position. Where a role has other listed locations, different compensation guidelines may apply. You may find the salary ranges for additional locations below. If the salary range is not listed for the location you are applying to, our Talent Acquisition team will provide further information to you relevant to your location.

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully

Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company.

No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.

Employee Status: Regular

Travel Requirements

Flexible Work Arrangements: Hybrid

Job Posting End Date: 11/18/2026

*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.