Associate Director, Data Science/Analytics ? Global Pharma Advanced Analytics

Key Skills

Apache Hadoop, C Programming, C++, Data science techniques, Java Programming, Machine learning techniques, MapReduce, Python Programming, PyTorch, R Programming, Scala Programming, SQL, TensorFlow

Job Description

New hires in office-based roles in the US & Puerto Rico will be required, subject to applicable law, to demonstrate that they have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or qualify for a medical or religious exemption to this vaccination requirement that can be accommodated without an undue burden to the operation. However, subject to applicable law, employees working in roles that the Company determines require routine collaboration with external stakeholders, such as employees in health services, customer facing commercial, or research based roles, will be required to be fully vaccinated as a condition of employment.

Attention NJ Applicants: In April 2020, our Company announced plans to consolidate our New Jersey campuses into a single New Jersey headquarters location in Rahway, NJ by 2023. Therefore, the NJ work location for this role will be temporarily based and the exact timing of the departmental move to Rahway, NJ will be communicated at a future date.

The Associate Director, Data Science role will collaborate with the newly developed Human Health Insights, Analytics and Data (HHIAD) area to use and apply data in dramatically improved ways to produce actionable insights that drive greater customer and market understanding to inform launch brand strategies, help meet in-line brand growth objectives, and achieve improved customer engagement. They will be an integral part in helping to facilitate the creation of actionable commercial use-cases that create ‘data-driven’ decisions, that leverage knowledge across the organization and be more relevant to the customer.

The preferred candidate will have an entrepreneurial spirit, understanding of healthcare & technology, a demonstrated record of producing actionable insights from analytics, knowledge of and ability to identify & use new customer data sources to influence marketing strategy and identify data driven opportunities in these key growth areas. They will have demonstrated consistently strong leadership skills, an ability to work independently and deal well with ambiguity and strong collaboration skills. They will empower a growth mindset and inspire a culture of continual learning. This role will require interfacing and collaborating with many teams so strong communication skills is a must.

Individuals who will thrive in this role are motivated by developing a deep understanding 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 analytical solutions that produce actionable insights.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Thoroughly understand the assigned internal client’s/stakeholder's business needs/priorities and helps to build analyses that support business objectives by delivering actionable insights.
• Mine and analyze data leveraging advanced analytical/statistical techniques from disparate databases/sources (claims data/EMR Data and other sources) to drive optimization and improvement of therapy area commercial business strategies.
• Be accountable for ensuring delivery of analyses with high quality standards, timeliness, compliance, and excellent user experience (routinely keep client base updated on progress).
• Establish and manages the continued close relationship with clients/ stakeholders.
• Understand the complexity/dependencies between multiple teams, platforms (people, technologies).
• Communicate intensively with other platform/competencies to understand new trends/ methodologies being implemented/considered within the company ecosystem and bring new ideas forward that will enhance analytic capabilities of the organization.
• Contribute to innovative experiments, specifically to idea generation, idea incubation and/or experimentation, identifying tangible and measurable criteria.
• Where applicable, collaborate and partner throughout the organization to identify, share and lead the sourcing of externally available data sources based on the business needs, and execution of specific business objectives.
• Ability to effectively communicate and positively influence stakeholders.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

 Education Minimum Requirements:

• BS (or equivalent) in Data Science, Computer Science, Management Information Systems, IT, MBA, or an equivalent scientific/commercial discipline.

Required Experience and Skills:

• Minimum of 3 plus years of relevant experience delivering actionable analytical insights that drive positive business results.
• Knowledge/experience mining medical claims/EMR, social media, etc. data with a strategic/inquisitive mindset and proven record of being able to produce actionable business insights that drive positive commercial results.
• Experience providing actionable insights through analytics to commercial franchises brands at various stages of product life cycle (development, launch, maturity, end of life cycle).
• Analytical experience in driving actionable insights from data in the following therapeutic areas: HIV, Acute Care, other Infectious Disease (COVID), Anesthesia, Neurology, Immunology, Cardiovascular, Metabolic is a plus.
• Proficiency formulating business questions based upon client insight requirements.
• Experience in evaluating medical claims/EMR (and other data sources) data features to determine best data source to answer business question.
• Ability to extract data from various database tables using tools such as SQL to develop features to be used in analysis including the ability to perform feature engineering when necessary.
• Experience developing both machine learning and descriptive algorithms/modeling using such languages as Python, R and SAS etc.
• Comfortable formulating actionable insights and recommendations from commercial analytics into presentations (using PowerPoint, Tableau, etc.) and presenting results to various levels of franchise management.
• Proven data science experience leveraging advanced statistical methods, Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing (NLP) modeling and model evaluation is a plus.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with diverse groups of work colleagues and positively manage ambiguity.
• Self-motivation, proactivity, and ability to work independently with minimum direction.
• Proven knowledge of business processes and industry/market trends within the pharmaceutical/healthcare space.
• Excellent business acumen, with proven ability to understand business processes and commercial strategies in detail – both at global and region/country levels – and translate these into detailed business requirements/questions that power analytics.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, along with the ability to communicate appropriately and confidently with colleagues from different backgrounds and seniority levels.
• Excellent organizational skills, with ability to navigate a complex matrix environment and organize/prioritize work efficiently and effectively.
• Previous experience with data curation and management in a relevant life-science sector (pharmaceutical, academic, or healthcare).
• Proven track record of successful completion of multi-stakeholder projects necessitating coordination cross-functionally between several departments.

Position will be a hybrid of remote and on-site work. The preferred candidate should be willing to be on site in Kenilworth, NJ or Upper Gwynedd, PA 2 to 3 times a week.

Our Human Health Division maintains a “patient first, profits later” ideology. The organization is comprised of sales, marketing, market access, digital analytics and commercial professionals who are passionate about their role in bringing our medicines to our customers worldwide.

Who we are …

We are known as Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, New Jersey, USA in the United States and Canada and MSD everywhere else. For more than a century, we have been inventing for life, bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases. Today, our company continues to be at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions and advance the prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and animals around the world.

What we look for …

Imagine getting up in the morning for a job as important as helping to save and improve lives around the world. Here, you have that opportunity. You can put your empathy, creativity, digital mastery, or scientific genius to work in collaboration with a diverse group of colleagues who pursue and bring hope to countless people who are battling some of the most challenging diseases of our time. Our team is constantly evolving, so if you are among the intellectually curious, join us—and start making your impact today.