Havas Life Medicom – reimagining brand, corporate and cause communications
Havas Life Medicom is a fully integrated agency that is 100% dedicated to creating standout communications in healthcare. We believe in the power of human purpose to help brands and organisations positively impact people’s lives.
Our success starts by strategically aligning promotion and PR across the product lifecycle, using creativity and innovation to craft persuasive stories. Our experts in strategic consultancy, cause and corporate campaigning, work side-by-side with our clients. Our goal is to put their story at the forefront of tomorrow’s healthcare agenda and help people around the world be at the centre of their own healthcare conversations.
In our quest to push boundaries, we’re always looking for brilliant people to join us and we are now recruiting for an Associate Medical Director.
The role
The Medical Team exists to provide medical oversight and foster a ‘patient-first’ mentality within Havas Life Medicom. The Medical Team works at all stages of project development, from involvement at project conception with touchpoints through the lifecycle to ensure the medical strategy is reviewed and aligned to deliver high-quality medical writing, clinical relevance, and regulatory compliance.
You will provide strategic, commercial, and clinical guidance to support both the agency and the clients that we work with. You will also be responsible for oversight of medical writing responsibilities across accounts and therapeutic areas, as well as considering the longer-term business needs of the agency to support both new and organic growth. Working alongside all Medical, Strategy and Client Services team members, to ensure that projects meet key medical, strategic, and ethical standards in their delivery to clients, healthcare professionals, and patients.
The responsibilities of the role include providing strategic insight for client projects and programmes, understanding the medical and commercial ramifications of client actions and offering perceptive solutions, providing guidance surrounding the longer-term business needs of HLM, thought leadership, managing medical writing accountabilities, meeting facilitation, client liaison and communication, project management (as required), keeping up to date with therapy area knowledge, ensuring the wider teams are kept up to date on medical and scientific developments, providing clinical insight, and ensuring clinical relevance and compliance in all projects that they are involved in.
Working in partnership with client leadership teams by providing strategic support and reflecting on longer-term commercial and/or medical ramifications, assisting with meeting facilitation (e.g. advisory boards, steering committee meetings, question/discussion moderation at key events, interviews, etc.), and maintaining enduring relationships with external experts. You will be responsible for acting as a leader of the Medical Team and line managing more junior members of the team to ensure their continued professional development (e.g. Medical Managers, medical copywriters).
Key Responsibilities
- Provide input and strategic solutions to briefs and client asks. Work in conjunction with the Client Services and Strategy teams to formulate the optimal client solution and consider the longer-term commercial and/or medical ramifications
- Rapidly demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of new therapeutic areas
- Have a deep scientific understanding of client products, therapy areas, portfolio, and clinical and commercial strategies
- Facilitate external meetings and briefings (client and/or HCP)
- Attend and support international congresses to gather scientific and medical intelligence, as required
- Provide meaningful and strategic clinical and healthcare environment insights
- Offer perceptive solutions to the medical and commercial issues faced by our clients
- Champion the importance of considering the needs of patients, HCPs, and other relevant decision-makers at all stages of project delivery, and work pragmatically with clients/colleagues to find solutions to these needs
- Work with the wider team to engender a culture of ‘patient-first’ thinking
- Provide high-quality medical writing review and guidance across a variety of formats and deliverables, as required
- Support Client Services to scope the project and estimate hours for the medical and/or writing team resource on the project
- Discuss any apparent changes to scope for ongoing projects with the Client Service Lead at the earliest opportunity
- Guide the commercial considerations across Havas Life Medicom to ensure continued profitability
- Strong ability to foster relationships with external experts to ensure HLM has a practical network of active healthcare professionals
- Manage junior members of the Medical Team, oversee the Writing Team and ensure their continued professional development and consistent quality in work outputs
- Provide insight and advice on the longer-term business needs of HLM and support new and organic business growth
- Assist or lead with the development of proposals and pitches, as required
- Lead in the development and delivery of thought leadership to support the business growth of Havas Life Medicom
- Act as a leader in promoting the role of the Medical Team within the Havas network
Skills and Experience
- Medical, Nursing, or Pharmaceutical degree
- Previous clinical practice experience and agency / industry experience
- Experience across several products and therapy areas within medical communications or an equivalent environment, with the ability to research medical literature effectively
- Ability to produce high-quality written material that is scientifically accurate, with good attention to detail
