Scientific Director in London

Agency: Omnicom Health Medical Communications

Job Function: Medical Scientific Services

Job Subfunction: Scientific

About us: At Omnicom Health Medical Communications, we give science a story to tell. As a global leader in publications, medical affairs, regulatory consultation, and AOR medical communications, we boldly define the journey from molecule to market for pharmaceutical and biotech clients. Our agency is powered by the convergence of highly skilled people, a higher purpose, and the nexus of science and technology innovation. We support 150+ transformational medicines across pharma, biotech, and healthcare. From early-stage discovery through commercialization, Omnicom Health Medical Communications partners with the medical communications community across the lifecycle of their assets—supercharging their science to engage and reach healthcare professionals.

Key Responsibilities

• Project Delivery
• Support the senior leaders, taking the lead on multi-writer projects, assisting with resourcing and scientific communications review.
• Demonstrate a high degree of scientific and commercial knowledge and insights across all activities, helping guide others to develop this skill.
• Oversee content on a wide range of complex projects across multiple teams and therapy areas.
• Demonstrate a high degree of proficiency in review of scientific content, helping to guide others to develop this skill.
• Consistently produce client-ready deliverables across a wide range of projects.
• Demonstrate full compliance with internal processes and lead adherence to best practices across teams, setting the example for junior team members to follow.
• Provide feedback on scientific components of budget development.
• Identify and communicate important updates and any medical/regulatory milestones to the team. Link this with any potential new business opportunities where applicable.
• Enter time and submit expenses by the deadlines set, using appropriate job codes.
• Strategic Mindset
• Act as scientific lead on assigned accounts, providing strategic direction and scientific leadership.
• Demonstrate a high degree of scientific knowledge and commercial insight across all activities.
• Partner with client services teams in strategic planning activities and account/issues management.
• Demonstrate a thorough understanding of a range of therapeutic and scientific concepts, and the ability to communicate these to colleagues, clients and external experts, knowing how and when to adapt language and content.
• Demonstrate leadership to deliver the highest possible standards in scientific excellence throughout the entire project process.
• Able to keep an effective overview of the ‘bigger picture’, whilst not getting lost in the detail for the account and agency.
• Business Development
• Participate in business development initiatives with existing and potential clients, as well as collaborating with the business development team in order to develop proposals and pitches.
• Work collaboratively across departments to cross-sell services, demonstrating an excellent understanding of the client’s business strategy/implications.
• Demonstrate a thorough understanding of business offerings, identifying opportunities for account growth and cross-selling.
• Collaboration and Building Relationships
• Establish, maintain and lead scientific relationships/communications with clients, medical experts and third parties, supporting junior team members to ensure they develop this skill.
• Lead collaborative work between Omnicom Health Med Comms and client teams/medical experts to moderate/facilitate activities.
• Builds Effective Teams
• Share in-depth knowledge of pharmaceutical industry standards across multiple teams and therapy areas, keeping up to date on latest industry developments.
• Utilising previous experience, guide the decision-making process and provide additional insight into writing styles, content inclusion, and data interpretation.
• Oversee the work of and provide clear direction to junior scientific service colleagues, delegating responsibilities and tasks where appropriate to provide experience, growth and knowledge transfer.
• Provide clear, constructive and actionable feedback to junior staff on a regular basis, and to peers when required.
• Help guide junior team members in their own strategic development by clearly explaining how to incorporate strategic concepts into projects.
• Provide effective line management, and supervise and support your team to help them achieve their objectives.
• Partner with HR to identify and proactively address any performance management issues.
• Take responsibility for the account team’s understanding of the therapy areas they work on.
• Share your knowledge and experience by confidently developing and delivering group presentations, or one-to-one/small group coaching sessions where appropriate.
• Ask team members (across all levels) for feedback, and proactively implement learnings.
• Own responsibility for your personal development, regularly looking for other ways to learn and grow professionally by maximising exposure to new opportunities, making the most of training and requesting training as required.
• Undertake tasks outside of the specifics of the job description where business reasons require it.

Skills and Experience:

• Essential
• Educated to degree level in a relevant science subject or 6+ years’ experience writing in a medical communications agency or similar environment.
• Experience in independently writing across a range of medical communications media.
• Previous line management experience.
• Proficient in using Microsoft Office programmes (e.g. PowerPoint, Excel, etc.).
• Have an excellent command of the English language in both written and verbal communications.
• Desirable
• Previous experience in a medical communications agency or industry would be advantageous.
• A keen interest in working and developing scientific expertise across a range of therapy areas.
• Previous business development experience – including taking part in live pitches.

Omnicom’s policy requires employees to work in the office for a minimum of three days a week, unless additional in-office days are directed by their agency or manager. Our objective is to increase this requirement over time, and many of our agencies as well as Omnicom’s corporate group already require five days of in-office attendance.

Omnicom is committed to hiring and developing exceptional talent. We agree that talent is uniquely distributed, and we’re focused on developing inclusive teams that can bring the best solutions to everything we do. We strongly believe that celebrating what makes us different makes us better together. Join us—we look forward to getting to know you.

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