Associate Medical Director, Italy

Cytokinetics is a specialty cardiovascular biopharmaceutical company, building on its over 25 years of pioneering scientific innovations in muscle biology, and advancing a pipeline of potential new medicines for patients suffering from diseases of cardiac muscle dysfunction.

Reporting to the Senior Medical Director Italy, the Associate Medical Director Italy role will be customer facing with medical field team responsibility for our roll out and also be strategic, to support implementation and execution of the devised medical launch strategy for CYTK products in Italy. 

The Associate Medical Director will serve as national lead of a team consisting of scientific professionals who serve as a key field-based scientific resource for healthcare providers, patients, industry partners and internal colleagues. In this role, the individual will lead field medical operations and manage a field-based Italian Medical Science Liaison (MSL) team.

The Associate Medical Director will collaborate and actively support the cross-functional team with the execution of the medical strategy in Italy and provide input relevant to our broader European efforts, based on their local expertise and insights.

The Associate Medical Director will be a key role in the ongoing build out of the wider planned Italy medical affairs team.

Responsibilities

• Subject matter expert in HCM disease state and its management in Italy as well as on aficamten and its competitors

• In collaboration with the Italian Sr Medical Director, strategize on the development of the country medical affairs plan and implementation of a field Medical Affairs vision and strategy, in alignment with the company’s corporate strategies and objectives.

• Lead field medical operations as the company’s field-based Medical Affairs team leader, participating directly in KOL/HCP development and engagement as well as supporting ongoing early and late-stage clinical trials in his region.

• Lead field medical launch-related planning for aficamten (a cardiac myosin inhibitor) being developed for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (oHCM) and future new indications (if any).

  • Ensure the MSL team is continuously trained on emerging aficamten data as it’s presented at congresses & via scientific publications and incorporate such data into the MSL aficamten Communication Plan.

  • Foster a compliant, cross-functional, customer-centric team approach between the MSL team and other Cytokinetics field-based teams/roles as the company transitions from Research & Development to a Commercial organization.

• Manage and mentor a MSL team while providing strong leadership to develop and motivate the MSL team to meet and exceed key performance indicators (KPIs).

  • Clearly communicate national and local MSL goals, objectives, and KPIs. Actively support the MSL team and their efforts by advocating and promoting collaboration within the team, across internal working groups, and with customers.

  • Guide and assist the MSL team in key opinion leader and expert cardiologist engagement in the field and with internal stakeholders.

  • Establish and maintain collaborative relationships with targeted scientific leaders to develop potential scientific and clinical therapeutic ideas related to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and heart failure (HF)), including coordination/support of investigator-initiated, non-registration pre-clinical and/or clinical studies.

  • In close collaboration with international and global team establish a CRM system in Italy and being the responsible person for this in Italy

  • Ensure that all MSL interactions and activities adhere to corporate and healthcare compliance guidance, including those related to scientific interactions with internal and external groups, responses to unsolicited requests for medical/scientific information, and discussion of external research.

  • Collect insights from the field and sensitize the MSLs on competitive intelligence

  • Facilitate a training strategy for disease state and portfolio/pipeline products to enhance MSL team knowledge.

• Maintain clinical, scientific, and technical expertise in cardiovascular medicine.

• Serve as a scientific resource to internal functional areas within Cytokinetics including serving as a member of cross-functional teams as required.

• Work with Medical Affairs and other internal, cross-functional colleagues on initiatives including congress planning, medical information, publications, medical education, and speaker training, as well as align priorities around areas of research interest.

• Train and organize the MSL team to effectively support congress activities like booth duty, scientific session coverage, KOL engagement, competitive intelligence collection, etc.

• Support planning, execution and leadership Italian advisory boards to gather feedback and input on study design, clinical trial data, clinical experience and medical education.

• Provide medical input and support to the commercial and market access activities for Italy

• Ability to travel regularly as required, region wide and globally, as necessary for business needs and development support

• Collaborate and work closely with all necessary related and associated departments including Marketing, Regulatory, Legal, Market Access and Pharmacovigilance

• Ensure that any associated needs of health care professionals and other key customers in Italy are known, understood and addressed in right time and in a compliant manner

Qualifications

• Advanced Medical or scientific degree (MD, PhD, PharmD)

• 10+ Years of relevant working experience in Medical Affairs within pharma/biotech

• Demonstrated leadership skills, with a successful track record in managing/coordinating field-based medical teams or medical science liaisons (MSL).

• Experience in Cardiology or related specialties and/or in rare cardiovascular diseases is advantageous

• Launch experience/expertise, ideally in specialty care is highly advantageous

• Strong understanding of the healthcare landscape, regulatory environment, and medical practices within Italy

• Excellent communication and presentation skills in both Italian and English, with the ability to effectively convey complex scientific information to diverse audiences.

• Proven expertise in KOL engagement, medical strategy, and collaboration with cross-functional teams.

• Proven ability to build strong relationships with KOLs and HCPs 

• Ability to manage multiple priorities and manage time efficiently

•  High ethical standards and familiarity with compliance guidelines in medical affairs

• Ability to work on their own, take initiative and accountability

• Strong ability to work remotely and adapt to a changing environment

• Ability to travel mostly national and if required in EU or globally

• Experience with Veeva or another CRM system

#LI-REMOTE

Pay Range:

Our employees come from different backgrounds, and we celebrate those differences. We are looking for the best candidates for our open roles, but do not expect applicants to meet every qualification in order to be considered. If you are excited about what you could accomplish at Cytokinetics and believe you can add value to our team, we would love to hear from you.

Please review our General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) policy PRIOR to applying.  

Our passion is anchored in robust scientific thinking, grounded in integrity and critical thinking. We keep the patient front and center in all we do – all actions and decisions are in service of the patient and their caregivers. We champion integrity, ethics, doing the right thing, and being our best selves.

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Cytokinetics is an Equal Opportunity Employer