Market Research Director - Job ID: 1230

Do you want to be part of building a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company together with a team of highly skilled colleagues who are passionate about developing best-in-class therapeutics that address significant unmet medical needs? Then Ascendis Pharma is committed to support your personal development on our journey towards becoming a leading rare disease company.

Ascendis Pharma is looking to hire an experienced Market Research Director to join our team. This is an exciting opportunity to join a rapidly growing, innovative company!

Position Summary

The Market Research Director will be responsible for developing a comprehensive market research plan and supervising execution of market research projects for the Ascendis portfolio. This functional leader will also be charged with integrating primary market research results with other data analysis, quantitative studies, and information to derive key insights that inform commercial strategies for both business units in global and the US.

The position will be based in Princeton, NJ and will report directly to the Vice President, Commercial Analytics & Operations.

Key Responsibilities

• Create a thorough market research plan to support key strategic and tactical decisions for the TransCon portfolio
• Become a trusted partner collaborating and influencing brand strategy to drive performance
• Expert understanding of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies with an ability to synthesize outputs into actionable insights
• Identify qualified suppliers to conduct market research studies and manage the process to engage suppliers for needed studies in a cost-effective manner and compliant with industry and company standards & policies
• Deep understanding of all stages of the buying process; ability to highlight commercial opportunities and gaps
• Possess a curiosity and openness to new insight methodologies and a drive to create the toolkit to better serve the business
• Sustain comprehensive organizational knowledge regarding competitive trends, health care environmental influences and investment performance against various marketing channels
• Possess a strong understanding of industry secondary data and syndicated sources and their strengths and weaknesses
• Lead market research efforts including epidemiology, treatment flow, qualitative or quantitative demand/market share, segmentation, positioning/messaging, future treatment paradigms, etc.
• Experience managing external agencies to become trusted business partners; providing insights that drive business value
• Supervise the conduct of market research studies in a collaborative manner ensuring that perspectives of all team members and partners are considered in crafting the content of discussion guides, surveys, etc. and the study methodology is appropriate to deliver reliable results
• Ensure that the conclusions and implications drawn from market research studies are objective, sound, relevant to the underlying business questions, supported by data, and communicated effectively to cross-functional teams and commercial leadership
• Ensure all marketing research activities are conducted in accordance with financial and ethical compliance guidelines

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree required; master’s degree or MBA preferred
• 8+ years of market research experience in the pharmaceutical or biotech industry (which may include work as a consultant or supplier to the industry
• Experience in Specialty or Rare Disease, preferred
• Proven record of drawing insights from primary market research with patients, health care providers, and payers to guide business decisions in support of in-line brands and launch products
• Strategic thinking and ability to integrate information to derive actionable insights, with a solid understanding of competitive intelligence and forecasting
• Expertise to lead selection of appropriate market research methodologies (both qualitative and quantitative) for a wide variety of business questions and willingness to do the hands-on work required to manage the resulting projects
• Proven history of working and delivering on multiple projects simultaneously, with tight deadlines and changing priorities is required
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in cross functional teams is required with a history of leadership, initiative in achieving organizational objectives.
• Evidence of group and project leadership, consensus-driving and project management is required
• Ability to operate in ambiguous situations and determine focused objectives and a clear path forward in the face of open questions
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills are required – in particular, the ability to summar