Forecasting Leader - Global Insights, Analytics & Commercial Excellence (GIACE)
AstraZeneca

Gaithersburg, Maryland

Posted in Pharmaceuticals


This job has expired.

Job Info


Build a long-term career by unlocking opportunities for lifelong learning

Build unrivalled capabilities in a place that promotes learning agility and offers development opportunities. We never stand still so you'll have the chance to constantly grow your abilities, skills and knowledge. Here we are a fusion of challenging and interesting work, in an energising and inspiring environment.

What we do

Ultimately, our aim is to work towards a cure for some of the world's most complex diseases. Whether that's by shaping the patient ecosystem and focusing on outcomes, or by progressing potential medicines and accelerating their launch.

How we do it

The shared creativity through both internal and external collaboration unlocks challenges and brings new solutions.

Why we love it

This is the place to make an impact. Here we ensure everyone can reach their full potential, perform at their best and make a valued contribution to the enterprise.

This role is part of the US focus of the CoE. The Forecasting Leader is a critical business partner with the US brand team, producing forecasts and consulting with the team on how to manage risks and opportunities for the business. As a Forecast Leader, you will have responsibility for a brand/brands and play an integral role in understanding performance, setting expectations for performance, and guiding brand strategy. This role is newly created to support the expanding Fasenra and Tezpire franchises in the Biologics Respiratory market and the expanding Life Cycle Management indications. They will be responsible for implementing and ensuring consistent application of standard forecasting methodologies across the organization drawing from inside and outside the industry, leading to objective forecasts supported by insight & analytics.

The Forecasting Leader will develop product-specific short-term and long-term forecasts models and maintain up-to-date forecast models, reflecting current data, information, assumptions; lead the forecasting and business planning processes and all associated work streams (sales bridges, ad hocs supporting Finance, etc.); Identify key business issues that impact short-term and long-range product and market forecasts; clearly and pro-actively surface these issues, incorporate the results of primary research into the forecast model(s) to reflect anticipated risks and opportunities on sales outlook, and support forecasts for the late stage Life Cycle Management assets. You will have responsibility to develop forecasts for your focused therapeutic area using patient flow forecast models, monthly patient based forecast models, and statistical trending and ensure alignment on forecast assumptions and other critical analytical assessments with business partners including Marketing, Sales, Managed Markets, Global Marketing, Insights, other parts of the CoE, Finance, and Sales Operations.

This role is reserved for someone with US pharmaceutical market experience who has deep forecasting and quantitative technical skills combined with superior communication and cross functional skills. As such, those who will qualify for this position are both technically sound and have the ability to be a proactive internal consultant, contributing to AstraZeneca's commercial organization beyond their analytical prowess through their understanding of secondary data, industry knowledge, and track record of innovative and impactful decision support.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Create robust forecast models taking into consideration key data, insights, trends, and assumptions around patient flow, market dynamics, competitive landscape, payer mix, supply chain inventory fluctuation, etc.
  • Assess existing forecast models, and prioritize areas for improvement
  • Refresh models with the latest insights as they become available
  • Lead assumptions generation discussions, synthesis of data and insights by gathering inputs from Market Research, Brand Analytics, Marketing, Finance, Market Access, Medical, etc.
  • Ensure strong alignment on forecast assumptions with cross functional teams (marketing, insights, Finance, Market Access, Brand Analytics, etc.) to provide transparency of forecast
  • Explain forecast variance by tracking forecast assumptions vs actuals and provide insight(s) on assumption and performance differences in actual(s) vs forecast(s) during RBU1, RBU2, and MTP.
  • Provide support to the ad-hoc business critical activities like valuation of potential in licensing/business development opportunities, earnings prep documents, investors relations calls etc.
  • Partner with Global or Early Asset teams to perform LTP, business case assessments for development or life cycle management decisions
  • Proactive identification of portfolio and brand risks and opportunities, and strategies for how to address them to deliver business success.
  • Ensuring objectivity of brand/therapeutic area forecasts of internal and external opportunities through establishing objectives aligned around forecast accuracy.
  • Monitors the external environment to stay up to date on the latest therapeutic area research and clinical development, as well as competitor landscape
  • Sensitivity analysis to assist in opportunity identification and risk management.
  • Partnership with US Market Access and Pricing teams, and Finance to understand market access and price impact, and support development of P&L for the products
  • Develop a deep understanding of internal customers' data and analytical needs focusing on the customer-facing model
  • Champion the use of local customer insight in strategic and resourcing decisions across the business.
  • Access appropriate information via a variety of tools and sources
  • Summarize and present findings through various communication channels
  • Capability in applying deeper technical skills and knowledge that is shared across the functional area (e.g., deep knowledge of key data sets, modeling capabilities, etc.)
Demonstrate a high level of understanding of the points of integration of our work and that of our colleagues.

Reporting Structure
  • This role does not have direct reports but may have responsibility to manage external contractors.

Candidate Knowledge, Skills and Experience

Essential requirements
  • 5+ years of analytical experience, 3 years experience in US pharmaceutical product forecasting. Experience on Specialty brands preferred. In-depth knowledge of forecasting techniques and use of different forecast models and approaches.
  • Excellent forecasting skills in patient based forecasting and statistical base line forecasting.
  • Experience utilising a range of analytics involving standard data in the Pharmaceutical Industry e.g. IQVIA (MIDAS, DDD, NPA, Xponent), claims data (LAAD, MarketScan, Optum, Prognos, Symphony), other data sources such as Specialty Pharmacy data, etc
  • Strong understanding of primary market research, advanced analytics, and competitive intelligence.
  • Reportable accomplishments around converting derived insight into strategic guidance
  • Exceptional eye for business, critical thinking and understanding of sales and marketing business practices
  • Entrepreneurial attitude to impact leadership and high emotional intelligence
  • Experience advising senior level executives, strong coaching and problem-solving skills
  • Strong ability to influence laterally and vertically
  • Strong written and verbal communication

Educational requirements
  • Bachelor's Degree in relevant field
  • Advanced degree preferred (e.g., PhD / MBA / Masters in areas such as Statistics/Decision Sciences)

Salary: Competitive

So, what's next?

Are you already imagining yourself joining us? Good, because we can't wait to hear from you!

For more information please contact: jojo.brown@astrazeneca.com

Additional information

Our Company Values & Behaviors underpin everything we do so please take a moment to familiarize yourself with them. You may also want to check out our new R&D Video showing how we turn Science into Medicines. Covid-19 Resources

More information about our sites:
  • Cambridge, UK
  • Gothenburg, Sweden
  • Gaithersburg, US

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.


This job has expired.

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