Senior Director, Patient Operations

Location: Gaithersburg, MD

Hybrid: 3 days a week on site

The Patient Operations Lead will serve as a key member of the US Cell Therapy Unit Leadership Team, responsible for crafting, leading, and continuously improving the patient operations model that will support AstraZeneca’s bold cell therapy portfolio in the United States. This role is highly strategic and cross-functional, with accountability for building the operational backbone required to support seven anticipated launches over the next seven years across the evolving cell therapy landscape, including autologous CAR-T for Multiple Myeloma, autologous CAR-T for solid tumors, and autologous TCR for pancreatic cancer.

Role Scope

The role will lead the development and orchestration of patient support services and associated operational capabilities to ensure a flawless, compliant, and scalable experience for patients, treatment centers, and internal stakeholders.

A central focus of the position will be to oversee the redesign and evolution of the ordering and case-tracking platform so that it enables end-to-end visibility across the patient and product journey, including order initiation, scheduling, apheresis, manufacturing, chain of identity, chain of custody, product release, shipment, treatment coordination, and relevant status monitoring throughout the cell production process.

In parallel, the Patient Operations Lead will ensure effective integration between external patient support and ordering platform partners and AstraZeneca’s internal CRM and commercial ecosystem, while establishing and implementing robust governance, access controls, and compliance safeguards. This includes ensuring that sensitive patient and operational data are appropriately segmented, protected, and used only for approved purposes, with clear protections against inappropriate access or misuse by Sales, Marketing, Market Access, and Medical teams. The role will work closely with Compliance, Legal, Privacy, IT, Commercial Operations, Medical, Market Access, and external vendors to create a fit-for-purpose operating model that balances patient-centricity, operational excellence, and regulatory integrity.

The successful candidate will bring strong leadership, deep operational expertise, and the ability to navigate the complexity of personalized cell therapy delivery models. They will be encouraged to build strategy while also driving execution, ensuring the organization is prepared to launch and scale highly complex therapies in a constantly evolving environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead patient operations strategy for the US Cell Therapy Unit, building the operating model required to support current and future launches across multiple cell therapy platforms.

• Serve as a core member of the US Cell Therapy Unit Leadership Team, contributing to business strategy, launch planning, capability building, and long-range operational readiness.

• Design, implement, and supervise patient support services that enable a high-quality, coordinated experience for patients and authorized treatment centers throughout the treatment journey.

• Redesign and optimize the ordering and case-management platform to provide end-to-end operational visibility across all critical steps in the autologous cell therapy process, from order entry through manufacturing and treatment delivery.

• Ensure effective integration of external partners and platforms with AstraZeneca internal systems, including CRM and relevant operational tools, to enable coordinated workflows and appropriate data exchange.

• Establish data governance and compliance controls that protect patient, provider, and operational data and ensure appropriate separation of information from commercial, promotional, and non-permitted uses.

• Partner with Compliance, Legal, Privacy, and Information Security to define and operationalize safeguards, access rules, audit processes, and monitoring mechanisms for data handling and system usage.

• Collaborate with Commercial, Medical, Market Access, Patient Services, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, IT, and Regulatory stakeholders to ensure operational solutions are aligned, scalable, and launch-ready.

• Be responsible for external vendors and service providers, including performance management, service level expectations, governance forums, issue partner concern, and improvement planning.

• Develop and monitor key operational metrics related to patient support, platform performance, case progression, manufacturing coordination, service quality, and stakeholder experience.

• Drive launch readiness activities for upcoming cell therapy ind