Market Access and Public Affairs Manager at The Biovac Institute

The Role

Biovac requires a Market Access and Public Affairs Manager to contribute to its mission of establishing local biological and vaccine manufacturing capability at its Johannesburg based site. Being the only one of its kind in South Africa, Biovac strives to respond to the vaccine needs of the developing countries, specifically South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. This is a particularly exciting time for the company as it continues to grow, strengthen, and build on its success and further develop its capabilities, products, services, and market diversification.

The successful incumbent will report to the Chief Executive Officer.  

Key Peformance Areas

• Stakeholder management with National government departments.
• Accountable for all activities and deliverables related to establishing and maintaining Market Access, reimbursement, and strategic optimal pricing for Biovac products as well as public sector stakeholder management.
• Works with cross-functional team to develop access strategies that are in line with the overall brand strategy and implement key activities targeted at external payer customers and influencers within South Africa.
• Maintains expertise in local access legislation and payer landscape.
• Responsible for supporting all activities and deliverables to obtain and maintain Market Access, Reimbursement, and strategic optimal pricing for Biovac’s products. 
• Generates customer insights, analyses, and utilises customer insights for customer segmentation and payer value driver identification.
• Maintains and tracks key performance indicators to measure the impact of market access activities
• Establishes strong, cooperative working relationships across functions.
• Supports business in understanding and managing external price execution
• Leads the development and implementation of Market Access plans for individual products
• Supports all activities and deliverables to obtain and maintain Market Access, reimbursement, and strategic optimal pricing for Biovac’s products.
• Partners with the cross-functional team to develop access strategies in line with the overall brand strategy.
• Implements key activities targeted at external payer customers and influencers within South Africa
• Partners and builds solid relationships with Commercial, Regulatory, Finance & Medical departments.
• Recommends appropriate tactics for effective engagement to raise awareness and strengthen our reputation with key policy makers and decision-makers
• Identifies and develops relationships with senior public health officials relevant to the company’s business
• Develops, manages, and delivers submissions to national health governmental organisations to achieve positive national level guidance
• Builds own, team and site’s GMP knowledge and compliance
• Participates in building quality and provide ongoing metrics that directly support the achievement of such objectives.
• Participates in building sustainable Quality Culture on site and proactively mitigates risks that may negatively impact quality or escalate these appropriately
• Establishes and maintains a state of control related to Quality Management within the department
• Ensures Deviations, Change Controls, CAPAs are handled effectively
• Advocates continuous improvement within own department as well as cross functionally

Experience Required:

• Understanding of Public Health environment and Public Health policy
• Pricing analyses and strategy
• Financial modelling
• Evaluation of clinical and economic literature
• Preparation of value dossiers
• Excellent MS Excel skills
• Good business acumen
• Knowledge of local healthcare system, its major players and decision makers.
• Experience in Pharmaceutical industry or a healthcare payer.
• Demonstrated track record of translating commercial strategy into a detailed implementation plan.
• Demonstrated track record of at least 8-10 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry or a healthcare payer

Qualifications:

• Business Degree or and equivalent Health Sciences qualification

Generic Competencies:

• Strong rapport building 
• Excellent, persuasive, and consultative negotiation skills
• Professional written, verbal communication and overall interpersonal skills
• Ability to collaborate effectively in a dynamic and culturally diverse workplace
• Demonstrated integrity and ethical demeanour
• Able to effectively plan, prioritise, organise, and execute work activities with excellent time management skills.
• Ability to simplify information
• Effectively able anticipate, facilitate, and resolve conflict 
• Able to be a change champion and a business driver 
• Natural analytical and accuracy flair

Technical Competencies required:

• Excellent analytical skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Organization, prioritisation, and project management skills
• Payer and country access expertise
• Pricing, value and access strategy development and execution
• Scenario planning in support of pricing and access negotiations
• Knowledge of Finance in support of pricing strategies
• Working knowledge of health economics and health technology assessments
• Ability to interpret and critically evaluate clinical data Key Leadership competencies:
• Decisive- manages complexity to make timely, informed decisions
• Focused- develops impactful short- and long-term solutions for payer customers to support better patient access and outcomes.
• Connected- collaborates with others to accomplish shared goals.
• Inspiring- motivates and develops self and other to move the business forward
• Courageous- consistently demonstrates accountability in the face of challenges
• Resilient- responds to change with agility and optimism and innovation
• Accountable- sets high personal standards and can be relied upon to deliver projects on time, within budget and to quality
• “big picture” thinking and can work across functions in the best interest of the business.
• Strategic and organizational agility.
• Complies with all applicable equal employment opportunity legislation in each jurisdiction in which it operates. Market Access

Other requirements:

• After hours availability, reliable transport, ability to travel nationally and internationally