Associate Director, Marketing - HCC

Job Description

Our commercial teams are passionate about bringing our medicines and vaccines to our customers around the world. The Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) brand team is recruiting an Associate Director of Consumer Marketing to lead the strategy, development, and sustained performance of the Patient Adherence Program designed to help patients start therapy, stay on therapy, and achieve the best possible experience over time. This role is accountable for building an integrated adherence ecosystem, combining patient insights, behavioral science-informed interventions, omnichannel engagement, hub/specialty pharmacy coordination, and robust analytics, to deliver measurable patient impact and outcomes.

Reporting to the U.S. Consumer Marketing Lead, the Adherence Program Lead will operate as a cross-functional orchestrator of the program, setting the vision, driving execution, establishing governance and measurement, and evolving the program through continuous improvement and innovation in close partnership with key internal and external stakeholders.

Within the first 12–18 months, the successful leader will:

Stand up and scale an omnichannel adherence program that measurably improves persistence, confidence, and sustained engagement across key patient segments. Build a clear adherence “strategy-to-execution” operating model, including governance, decision rights, vendor/agency model, budget, and compliance documentation. Establish an adherence measurement framework (KPIs, dashboards, reporting cadence) that ties interventions to patient and business outcomes and enables test-and-learn optimization. Drive seamless integration across the patient journey—coordinating with hub services, distribution/specialty pharmacy, digital/data/IT, and field teams to reduce friction points that threaten adherence. Evolve the program pipeline (MVP → 2.0+), continuously improving content and experiences through insights, operational learnings, and emerging capabilities/technology.

Primary Responsibilities

1) Adherence Strategy & Program Architecture

• Own the end-to-end adherence strategy: refine the program north star, target behaviors, segment needs, value proposition, and the integrated set of interventions that address adherence barriers across the journey.

• Translate patient insights, behavioral barriers, and operational learnings into prioritized program enhancements that improve the patient experience and retention outcomes.

2) Omnichannel Engagement & Content Excellence

• Lead development of omnichannel adherence interventions (e.g., CRM journeys, email/SMS where appropriate, web experiences, education content, toolkits) aligned to brand strategy and patient needs.

• Ensure adherence communications are built for confidence-building, expectation-setting at initiation, and sustained reinforcement—tailored by segment and lifecycle stage.

• Partner with Global/Comms and internal brand teams to ensure message consistency, education alignment, and channel synergy.

3) Data, Measurement, and Performance Management

• Partner with Digital, Data & Analytics and IT to define adherence KPIs, data requirements, and dashboards, enabling performance tracking, insight generation, and ongoing optimization.

• Build a closed-loop measurement approach: connect interventions to outcomes (engagement → behavioral proxies → persistence metrics where available), and drive test/learn/scale cycles.

• Synthesize complex data sets (patient experience signals, operational metrics, channel performance) to uncover drivers, risks, and opportunities to improve adherence outcomes.

4) Enterprise Collaboration & Journey Integration

• Enable collaboration across Marketing, Patient Experience, Market Access, Field Access, Medical Affairs, Regulatory, Legal/Compliance, Pharmacovigilance, Privacy, distribution/specialty pharmacy, and hub/patient services to optimize the post-Rx experience.

• Ensure program design integrates seamlessly into the real-world ecosystem (hub workflows, specialty pharmacy touchpoints, field education needs, consent capture considerations, etc.).

5) Operating Model, Vendor Leadership, and Executional Excellence

• Lead integrated planning: program roadmap, timelines, resourcing, risk logs, and decision points; drive disciplined execution with clear milestones and accountability.

• Oversee agencies and vendors (AORs, digital partners, operational partners): contracts/SOWs, SLAs, performance management, and budget stewardship.

6) Governance, Compliance, and Risk Management

• Ensure adherence program strategy and execution are compliant with applicable requirements (e.g., FDA promotional regulations, privacy/HIPAA considerations, OIG guidance, state laws, AE/product complaint reporting), and partner with Legal/Compliance for approvals and monitoring.

• Embed governance and guardrails into the program’s operating rhythm to enable speed without compromising compliance.

Education

• Required: BA/BS

• Preferred: MBA, MPH (or advanced degree in a related field)

Required Experience & Capabilities

• 5+ years of relevant experience in U.S. pharma/biopharma across consumer marketing, patient support, patient experience, access/coverage, distribution/SP ecosystem, and/or digital engagement.

• Demonstrated success building and executing integrated marketing/program strategies with measurable outcomes.

• Strong cross-functional leadership—ability to influence senior stakeholders and align complex enterprise teams.

• Strong business and financial acumen (budget ownership, vendor management, value-case thinking).

• Strong written/verbal communication and executive-ready storytelling with data.

Preferred Experience

• Experience designing, scaling, or optimizing patient adherence/retention programs and/or high-touch patient support models (hub services, specialty pharmacy-distributed therapies).

• Rare disease and/or specialty therapy commercialization experience; PAH familiarity a plus.

• Strong understanding of U.S. commercial and regulatory environment affecting patient programs (privacy, PV, compliance guardrails).

• Hands-on experience with analytics and CX tooling (journey mapping, service design, call analytics, CRM/case management, BI tools such as Tableau/Power BI).

• Experience operating in agile or agile-like delivery models.

Required Skills:

Adaptability, Agile Methodology, Business Planning Development, Competitor Analysis, Digital Marketing, Executive Presence, Financial Analysis, Key Performance Indicators (KPI), Market Access, Marketing Planning, Market Research Techniques, Market Trend Analysis, Medical Affairs, Oral Communications, Organizational Performance Management, Patient Engagement, Performance Tracking, Product Management, Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension, Strategic Planning, Strategic Thinking, Vendor Management

Preferred Skills:

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Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

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As an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer, we provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.  As a federal contractor, we comply with all affirmative action requirements for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.  For more information about personal rights under the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment laws, visit:

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We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing together, talented, and committed people with diverse experiences, perspectives, skills and backgrounds. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when people with diverse ideas, broad experiences, backgrounds, and skills come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively.

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U.S. Hybrid Work Model

Effective September 5, 2023, employees in office-based positions in the U.S. will be working a Hybrid work consisting of three total days on-site per week, Monday - Thursday, although the specific days may vary by site or organization, with Friday designated as a remote-working day, unless business critical tasks require an on-site presence.This Hybrid work model does not apply to, and daily in-person attendance is required for, field-based positions; facility-based, manufacturing-based, or research-based positions where the work to be performed is located at a Company site; positions covered by a collective-bargaining agreement (unless the agreement provides for hybrid work); or any other position for which the Company has determined the job requirements cannot be reasonably met working remotely. Please note, this Hybrid work model guidance also does not apply to roles that have been designated as “remote”.

The salary range for this role is

$142,400.00 - $224,100.00

This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this 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. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits.

You can apply for this role through https://jobs.merck.com/us/en (or via the Workday Jobs Hub if you are a current employee). The application deadline for this position is stated on this posting.

San Francisco Residents Only: We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance

Los Angeles Residents Only: We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance

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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

Relocation:

No relocation

VISA Sponsorship:

No

Travel Requirements:

10%

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:

No

Hazardous Material(s):

N/A

Job Posting End Date:

05/5/2026

*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.