VP, Head of US Market Access

Position Summary:

Zenas is seeking a seasoned, dynamic commercial executive with extensive I&I experience (and ideally Neurology too) to lead the company’s market access organization. Reporting to the Chief Commercial Officer, the VP Head of US Market Access will lead the Company’s market access strategy and execution for the company’s future portfolio. This is a critical senior leadership role that will be instrumental in the Company’s continued success.

Key Responsibilities:

• As a member of the commercial leadership team, the VP Head of US Market Access will play a critical role in building, maintaining, and enhancing the vision, structure, talent base, capabilities, and operating model of the cross- functional commercial organization
• Responsible for all aspects of Market Access including market access strategy and marketing, field-based account management, patient access & reimbursement services, channel strategy and operations, and pricing and contracting operations.
• Ensure Market Access team is working effectively with cross-functional commercial partners in Commercial Insights & Operations, Marketing, Commercial Training & Effectiveness, and Sales to maintain strategic alignment, produce high quality deliverables, and achieve performance objectives.
• Must have a strong understanding of the I&I market and be able to build a market access strategy to support both current and future products as the pipeline matures.
• Lead, motivate, develop, and retain a team of highly skilled market access professionals.
• Responsible for Zena’s strategic and tactical plans to ensure optimal patient access across all payer types including commercial payers, PBMs/OBMs, Medicaid, Medicare, and federal VA/DOD channels.
• Partner with Sales leadership to understand customer needs, enhance the customer experience, and build partnerships with key customers while optimizing overall impact to the business
• Partner with the Commercial Insights & Operations to envision, design, and implement the channel-based data flows (e.g., specialty pharmacy and specialty distributor data, patient support center data, 3PL data) necessary to understand the business, track key trends and performance metrics, and identify opportunities for continued improvement.
• Partner with the Commercial Insights & Operations team to develop and maintain deep market access insights through analysis of key performance data, market research, and competitive intelligence.
• Partner with commercial leadership team to develop and execute optimized pricing and contracting strategies, monitor impact, and recommend ways to continually improve over time.
• Partner with Marketing & HEOR/Medical Affairs leadership to develop product value propositions, evidence generation plans, messaging, and supporting economic analyses/models.
• Oversee a high-performing field-based account management team responsible for a broad spectrum of critical relationships including commercial and government payers, specialty pharmacies, GPOs, key provider accounts, etc. Partner with the Commercial Insights & Operations team to conduct field team sizing and structure analyses, develop IC plans, and design and implement field operations (CRM, reporting, etc.)
• Develop a close, collaborative relationship with key cross-functional partners to ensure teams are working effectively and compliantly together both internally and in the field
• Execute channel strategies to ensure effective and efficient delivery of products to end users. Maintain close oversight of all aspects of channel operations and performance management including inventory management.
• Work closely with Finance, Legal and Commercial Insights & Operations teams to map data strategy and ensure key data contracts are in place with channel partners to enable sales tracking, revenue recognition, government price reporting, and rebate adjudication and payment
• Oversee execution of key patient access & reimbursement programs to optimize patient access and affordability while optimizing commercial results
• Establish relationships and facilitate activities across various industry segments (providers, patients, payers, specialty pharmacies, distributors, internal hub team) to ensure effective and efficient patient access, product delivery, and financial flows.
• Keep company informed and ready for the rapidly changing market access environment (e.g., Medicare payment reforms, pricing policies) to inform corporate strategy, portfolio strategy, product forecasts, and long-term plans
• Work closely with compliance to ensure adherence to relevant laws and regulations.
• Work closely with Commercial Training & Effectiveness to ensure entire commercial organization is well trained on key market access topics and programs and highly effective at communicating and implementing them with customers.
• Provide thought leadership to New Product Planning on access issues related to pipeline products
• Be a thought partner with Global Marketing to provide Access and Reimbursement guidance for ex-US markets
• Partner and ensure regular, effective communication with marketing and sales leadership to identify challenges and opportunities and deliver solutions as needed
• Demonstrate market access thought leadership and represent Company at key meetings, functions, and conferences, etc., when appropriate.
• Participate on product strategy teams to inform portfolio planning with critical global market access insights
• Ensure successful agency/vendor partnerships
• Develop and deliver market access presentations to senior leadership
• Role involves significant travel (approximately 30% of time) to customer visits, medical meetings, sales meetings, market research, etc

Qualifications:

• BS/BA degree in business or related discipline.  MBA strongly preferred.
• Fifteen (15) or more years of experience within the pharmaceutical or biotechnology industries including at least 5-7 years in marketing senior and 5-7 years in senior sales leadership roles (including second line leadership). 
• I&I launch experience is required; MS & SLE experience strongly preferred.
• Experience building teams and commercial capabilities is required.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver results in competitive markets.
• Existing relationships with key customers are highly valued (e.g., KOLs, key account leadership, I&I societies, GPOs, etc.)
• Must be a true team player – authentic, humble, able to build a positive team spirit and lead through the ups and downs of drug development, puts success of team above own interests and support everyone’s efforts to grow and develop
• Demonstrated ability to motivate and lead teams and have the managerial courage to make and stand by difficult decisions
• Experience in and understanding of other commercial functions (e.g., marketing, market access, sales operations, sales training, insights/analytics, business development, etc.) will be an important consideration for this role.
• Must be highly analytical.  Must be comfortable formulating and delivering data-driven, fact-based analyses of the business and utilizing these insights to propose effective strategies to meet corporate objectives.
• Must be a resourceful, creative problem solver who seeks out, and is receptive to, new ideas and approaches to solving persistent challenges.
• Must be a true team player – authentic, humble, professional, able to build a positive team spirit and lead teams through the ups and downs of drug development, puts success of the company and the overall commercial organization above own interests and supports everyone’s efforts to succeed, grow, and develop.
• Ability and willingness to work effectively and seamlessly at multiple “altitudes” within the organization.  Maintains a “no job is too big or too small” attitude necessary to succeed in a startup environment and ensures direct reports do the same.
• Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills (including ability to successfully convey insights and recommendations via PowerPoint), including ability to synthesize data and deliver a clear overview of the state of the business, drivers of performance, opportunities and risks, and recommended action plans.  Strong executive presence and comfortable presenting to CEO and board of directors.
• Demonstrated ability to attract top talent with diverse backgrounds and build cohesive, high performing teams
• Demonstrated ability to adapt to changes in the work environment. Manages competing demands. Changes approach or method to best fit the situation. Able to deal with frequent change, delays, unexpected events, or uncertainty/ambiguity with maturity and professionalism.
• Highly skilled in influencing cross-functional teams, including interfacing with key internal and external stakeholders and with scientific and commercial teams

#LI-Hybrid

The position is eligible for a competitive compensation and benefits package.

Zenas is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The base salary pay range for this role is $290,000 to $340,000. Actual compensation packages will depend on various factors, including, but not limited to depth of experience, education, skillset, overall performance and/or location.

Zenas believes in providing a competitive compensation and benefits package to all employees. Our base salary is just one component of Zenas’ competitive total rewards strategy that also includes annual performance bonus, equity, full range of benefits and other incentive compensation plans.