Director, Global Medical Publications, Rare Disease

Job Summary

The Director, Publications Lead is responsible for leading the planning, development, and execution of the global medical publication strategy and publication deliverables for the relevant therapeutic area across multiple assets in development. This role ensures the timely, accurate, and compliant communication of scientific and clinical data through congress abstracts, posters, manuscripts, and other peer-reviewed outputs.

Serving as the functional lead for publication operations within the Medical Communications team across global congresses, the Director partners closely with cross-functional stakeholders, including Clinical Development, Global Integrated Evidence & Innovation (GIE&I), Medical Strategy, Core Content, and external vendors, ensuring excellence and consistency in scientific communication across the portfolio. This role will also be responsible for managing bi-directional publication strategy alignment and review with alliance partners involved in asset development as needed.

The position reports to the Medical Communications Lead and plays a key leadership role in advancing Otsuka’s mission to deliver impactful, evidence-based science that improves patient outcomes.

Key Responsibilities Include:

Publications Strategy and Execution

• Lead execution of the publication plans for relevant therapeutic area assets, ensuring strategic alignment with global medical and communication objectives, data dissemination priorities, and the product lifecycle

• Management of alliance partnerships for publication strategy and review across global congresses and journals

• Partner with Medical Communications and cross-functional teams to define publication timelines, data priorities, and congress/journal strategies in collaboration with study teams and medical leaders

• Oversee the end-to-end development of publication deliverables, including abstracts, posters, and manuscripts to ensure scientific accuracy, quality, and adherence to Good Publication Practices (GPP), ICMJE, and company SOPs

• Support the integration of publication insights into broader scientific communication platforms (SCPs), ensuring consistency across core content, field materials, and other medical channels

• Future potential to manage other direct reports or a team

Vendor & Budget Management

• Manage publication vendors and medical writing partners to ensure timely delivery, cost-effectiveness

• Oversee operational management of external publication agencies, providing clear direction, review, and feedback to ensure alignment with scientific and compliance standards

• Manage assigned publication budgets, including forecasting, tracking, and reconciliation

• Ensure efficient resource utilization and drive continuous process improvement across publication workflows, including considering managing in-house development of some publication content

Cross-functional Leadership

• Collaborate closely with Clinical Development, Global Integrated Evidence & Innovation, Medical Strategy, and Core Content teams to ensure data readiness, accurate interpretation, and timely publication of key clinical results

• Serve as a publications subject matter expert within the Medical Communications function, providing strategic and operational guidance and support to internal stakeholders and vendors

• Partner with Field Medical and Medical Core content leads to ensure consistency of published data messaging across medical channels and external communications

• Contribute to integrated medical communication planning, ensuring that publications effectively support data dissemination goals and launch readiness activities

• Consider technology and AI to support workflow improvement

Compliance & Quality Oversight

• Ensure all publication activities are conducted in accordance with internal SOPs, GPP, ICMJE, and regional/global regulatory requirements

• Partner with Legal, Regulatory, and Compliance teams to uphold publication governance, authorship transparency, and ethical data sharing standards

• Contribute to audit readiness and documentation best practices for publication records and approvals

Qualifications/ Required

Skills and Competencies:

• Strong leadership presence and ability to present to executive leadership team

• Demonstrated ability to lead publication strategy execution across global and regional teams

• Engagement experience with alliance partners in asset develop