Associate Director, Medical Strategic Planning & Operations

The Associate Director, Medical Excellence / Medical Operations plays a key leadership role in ensuring efficient, compliant, and scalable Medical Affairs execution across the International Region. The role focuses on improving ways of working, optimizing review and approval processes, strengthening medical compliance and governance, and supporting country teams with guidance, tools, and best practices adapted to diverse local market needs.

This role partners closely with Global Medical Affairs, Country Medical Directors, Compliance, Regulatory, Legal, Patient Advocacy teams.

The ideal candidate is a highly organized, proactive team player who thrives in complex matrix environments, simplifies processes and brings structure. This role requires good communication and project management skills, and the ability to ensure high quality operational delivery

Key Responsibilities

1. Operational Excellence & Process Optimization

• Identify and implement improvements in medical ways of working to increase efficiency, consistency, and alignment across countries in the INTL region.
• Develop and maintain tools, templates, workflows, and operating guidelines to support local medical execution.

2. Medical Review / MLR Process Leadership

• Streamline Medical–Legal–Regulatory review pathways to reduce cycle times and improve clarity of roles and deliverables.
• Enable teams in developing high-quality medical materials and submissions for review.
• Serve as a resource for compliance/ regulatory/approval expectations across markets.

3. Compliance, Governance & Policy Implementation

• Ensure compliant execution of medical activities in line with internal SOPs, external regulatory standards, and local codes.
• Partner with Compliance and Legal to update guidance documents and policies and to support audit readiness.

4. Regional Representation & Collaboration with Global Medical

• Represent the International Region within global forums and strategic discussions.
• Advocate for regional needs and ensure global strategies are appropriately adapted to local contexts.
• Share regional insights to shape global medical processes, planning assumptions, and resource allocation.

5. Enablement & Support to the Regional Medical Team

• Provide hands-on support to the regional team in executing medical tactics (ad boards, roundtables, data dissemination, scientific exchange).
• Facilitate best practice exchange and capability-building across markets.
• Support onboarding of new regional and field medical personnel

Qualifications & Experience

Required

• Scientific degree preferred (PhD, MSc or equivalent).
• Experience in Medical Affairs in pharmaceutical/biotech organizations.
• Experience working across multiple markets and diverse regulatory environments.
• Strong understanding of medical compliance, scientific engagement standards, and MLR / review governance.
• Proven ability to drive process improvement and cross-functional alignment.

Preferred

• Experience in rare disease, cardiology, neurology, or genetic conditions.
• Experience supporting launch readiness and/or leading operational excellence projects.
• Familiarity with digital medical systems (e.g., Veeva CRM), medical dashboards, or analytics tools.

Key Capabilities

• Structured thinker with strong organizational and project management skills.
• Excellent communicator able to simplify complexity and provide clear guidance.
• Collaborative mindset with ability to influence without authority.
• Practical, solution-oriented approach; comfortable working in evolving, fast-paced settings 

Travel

~10–20% international travel expected.

About Alnylam: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ALNY) has led the translation of RNA interference (RNAi) into a whole new class of innovative medicines with the potential to transform the lives of people afflicted with rare and more prevalent diseases. Based on Nobel Prize-winning science, RNAi therapeutics represent a powerful, clinically validated approach to treating diseases at their genetic source by “interfering” with mRNA that cause or contribute to disease. Since our founding in 2002, Alnylam has led the RNAi Revolution and continues to turn scientific possibility into reality.

Our culture: Our people-first culture is guided by our core values: fiercely innovative, open culture, purposeful urgency, passion for excellence, and commitment to people, and these values influence how we work and the business decisions we make. Thanks to feedback from our employees over the years, we’ve been fortunate to be named a top employer around the world. Alnylam is extremely proud to have been recognized as one of Science Magazine’s Top Biopharma Employers, one of America's Most Responsible Companies for 2024 by Newsweek, a Fast Company Best Workplace for Innovators, and a Great Place to Work in Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and UK – among others.

At Alnylam, we commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equal employment opportunity. We are dedicated to building an environment where employees can feel that they belong, can bring their authentic selves to work, and achieve to their full potential. By empowering employees to embrace their unique differences at work, our business grows stronger with advanced and original thinking, allowing us to bring groundbreaking medicines to patients.