Job Description

Director - Scientific Marketing Affairs, Dermatology

The Companion Animal (CA) Business unit leads strategy development and execution across markets throughout the world. It drives global marketing strategies and activities to drive successful key CA launches and maximizes the value of in-line products. Our company's Animal Health has a very robust pipeline of new products and initiatives providing customer benefits and driving business growth.

Within our company's Animal Health Companion Animal portfolio, Bravecto, Caninsulin, Nobivac, the Otic Portfolio, and Home Again are leaders within their respective categories.

The Director is responsible for setting medical strategy for the Global CA Dermatology portfolio for all aspects of medical marketing activity including publications, conferences, and medical education planning, as well as thought leader and key opinion leader engagement. This position is part of the medical affairs and veterinary relations team which provides actionable medical insights to marketing franchises and commercial teams to drive business performance. Providing excellence in scientific support activities to assist customers and capture the most value in alignment with division’s strategic initiatives is essential.

This is a new position requiring a veterinarian with vision, strong market and commercial understanding, and outstanding presentation and influencing skills. You will be responsible for helping to shape medical policy that impacts our company’s offerings, delivers best-in-class medical education, develops worldwide key thought leader support, and provides marketing technical support for our company's Animal Health Global Companion Animal business unit. You will also have responsibility for influencing category growth, driving year over year sales growth, implementing the company’s global medical affairs strategy, and defining synergies between the company’s therapeutic portfolio. Further, in conjunction with Research and Development, you will influence the future pipeline direction utilizing your deep understanding of the needs and motivators that drive behavior of veterinarians, their clients, and patients.

This position reports directly to the Executive Director - CA Global Medical Affairs & Veterinary Relations of the Companion Animal Business Unit. You will be a key member of the technical services team with a scope of influence extending globally, leading and influencing extended teams consisting of 10 to 100 commercial and technical services team members across all geographies. Our Veterinary experts use their scientific background to provide technical expertise and education to our customers, sales, and marketing teams. With a deep knowledge of pharmacology and animal health, we engage scientific exchange with external experts & industry leaders ensuring the scientific value of our animal health portfolio is understood.

This position is an essential and prominent leadership position, will collaborate closely with global companion animal leadership setting strategic direction, and will interact and influence at all levels of the company (including Executive Leadership) to ensure optimized and successful CA new product marketing strategy and competitive differentiation.

Primary Activities:

Accountable to lead scientific and medical strategies for the launch of the company’s new dermatology products, understand customer and category dynamics, influence formulary decisions, identify growth opportunities, define competitive advantages, and set a work standard of excellence by providing a best-in-class scientific/professional image within the veterinary industry.

• Key contributor to brand health and business revenues through collaboration with matrixed marketing, sales, regulatory and research and development teams. Responsible for strategic input to company’s product portfolio operating plans including KOL management and data generation through Phase IV and Outcomes Research studies to build value within brands and lead with science.

• Represent the medical voice of company’s products.

• Lead customer-centric thinking and craft scientific programs to establish our company's position among thought leaders, KOLs, veterinary academia, and veterinarians.

• Collaborate and partner with regions and markets to develop effective relationships with veterinary medical organizations, veterinary schools, policy makers, researchers, and thought leaders to educate them and gain insights.

• Ensure all technical services programs are successful, metrics-driven, and purposeful.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including Marketing and Commercial Leadership, to drive business performance and set strategic direction.

• Develop and execute the KOL Program Strategy in collaboration with Marketing, Commercial Operations, and regional veterinary teams, while building strong relationships with key veterinary organizations, supporting scientific projects, coordinating educational events, and ensuring our company's Animal Health's representation on professional boards and advisory committees, globally.

• Oversee the development and execution of the global publication, technical market studies, conference, and education strategic plan, integrating conference data into the customer journey, and collaborating with medical strategic leads and training teams to provide effective and accurate technical training curriculums for thought leaders, key opinion leaders, consulting veterinarians, and across our company's Animal Healthorganization to optimize product and service knowledge and insights.

• Ensure business practices and policy in compliance with regulatory and legal requirements.

• Collaborate with Regional/Local technical services colleagues.

Qualifications & Experience

• Degree in Veterinary Medicine. Board certification, PhD, advanced degree in Animal Science, highly preferred.

• Previous veterinary practice (private or corporate) emphasizing pet medicine and post-DVM or PhD specialization in dermatology, parasitology, entomology, or virology is preferred.

• Veterinary medical & scientific business experience is highly preferred with a minimum of 10 years combined in clinic practice and academic or industry related activities.

• Demonstrated ability to work in a multicultural, international environment, diverse countries, and business backgrounds in a matrix organization.

• Skilled in navigating and influencing within an international matrix organization, driving rapid growth, and elevating market position, aligned with global and regional objectives.

• Demonstrated ability in conflict resolution and judgment.

• Proven experience of creating and executing successful veterinary customer strategies with measured results with set of clear metrics.

• Strong people skills that will help in developing and building internal and external relationships with key stakeholders to collaborate and drive results for business unit.

• Ability to challenge and drive the organization towards the success of key veterinary strategies.

• Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills

• Fluency in English is required. Spanish and/or French is an asset.

• Able to travel up to 35% of time including Europe, Asia, and South America.

Required Skills:

Animal Science, Competitive Advantages, Confidentiality, Cross-Cultural Awareness, Customer Collaborations, Customer Handling, Data-Driven Decision Making, Emergency Care, Market Research, Medical Care, Medical Teaching, Multicultural Environments, Parasitology, Personal Relationships, Pet Care, Pricing Strategies, Sales Services, Segmentation Strategy, Self Motivation, Strategic Thinking, Technology Platforms, Veterinary Consulting, Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Pathology, Virology

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

Our company is committed to inclusion, ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please click here if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

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

$173,200.00 - $272,600.00

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

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

Relocation:

Domestic

VISA Sponsorship:

No

Travel Requirements:

25%

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Remote

Shift:

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:

No

Hazardous Material(s):

N/A

Job Posting End Date:

04/8/2026

*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.