Rx+ Business Accelerator Product Head

Do you want to be part of an inclusive team that works to develop innovative therapies for patients? Every day, we are driven to develop and deliver innovative and effective new medicines to patients and physicians.  If you want to be part of this exciting work, you belong at Astellas!

Astellas Pharma Inc. is a pharmaceutical company conducting business in more than 70 countries around the world. We are committed to turning innovative science into medical solutions that bring value and hope to patients and their families. Keeping our focus on addressing unmet medical needs and conducting our business with ethics and integrity enables us to improve the health of people throughout the world. For more information on Astellas, please visit our website at www.astellas.com.

This position is based in Northbrook, Illinois. Remote work from certain states may be permitted in accordance with Astellas’ Responsible Flexibility Guidelines. Candidates interested in remote work are encouraged to apply.

Purpose and Scope:

The Rx Business Accelerator Product Head is responsible for providing technical and product expertise and insight to the BAPs and R projects within the Rx Business Accelerator.  The role provides leadership, strategic direction and supports decision-making in relation to technology and product to ensure that the Rx businesses are based on robust, sustainable, differentiated and high-quality products and solutions, forming the basis of building long-term, successful businesses.  This responsibility extends across the full portfolio of the Rx Business Accelerator and the Rx Head of Product plays a critical role in driving innovation, ensuring compliance, and delivering impactful and safe digital health and medical device solutions to improve healthcare outcomes.

Essential Job Responsibilities:

• PRODUCT STRATEGY
  • Product Strategy and Vision: Work with each BP and R Project Lead to help them develop a clear product vision and strategy that aligns with the BAP or R Project’s overall goals and takes into account both digital health and medical device aspects. Understand market trends, user needs, fit with customer workflow, fit with patient ecosystem and regulatory requirements to help drive product development.
  • Product Roadmaps: Work with each BP and R Project Lead to create and maintain a clear product roadmap that outlines the product lifecycle, including the features and enhancements to be developed over time, clarity on hardware and software integration, prioritizing initiatives based on user feedback, business value, and technical feasibility; and device end-of-life planning.
  • Market Research: Stay informed and updated on the latest technological developments and competitive landscape and conduct market analysis to identify potential threats and opportunities. Use data and insights to inform product decisions in BAPs and R Projects.
• CUSTOMER/PATIENT FOCUS
  • User-Centered Design and Usability: Prioritize user experience and usability for both digital health platforms and medical devices. Establish capabilities in Rx BA to incorporate human-centered design principles to create intuitive and user-friendly products that address specific healthcare needs. Develop a capability to rapidly prototype solutions to demonstrate potential value.
  • Service Strategy: Work with each BP and R Project Lead to create and maintain a clear strategy for ensuring sustainability of products including technical hardware and software upgrades and maintenance, users need for help and support, support for users of limited dexterity; vision; hearing; etc, support for markets and users with limited access to technology.
• SOLUTION STRATEGY
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work collaboratively with multidisciplinary stakeholders and teams, including engineers, designers, clinicians, regulatory experts, functional “digital” experts, DAT and marketing professionals from inside Astellas and third-party partners and collaborators. Foster effective communication and alignment to ensure successful product development, launches and maintaining solutions across the lifecycle.
  • Data Capability: Responsible for working with internal and external stakeholders to establish a world class, differentiating and compliant capability for the collection, storage, governance, security, analysis and use of all data (including customer data), including meeting all required privacy & security standards. This will include creation of associated technologies, policies and training to implement the capability and ensuring compliance with data protection regulations and the protection of Astellas intellectual property.
  • Technology Strategy: Define the Rx BA technology strategy, based on the portfolio and establishing expertise and capabilities that form the basis of competitive differentiation and operational efficiencies associated with building new future businesses, including identification of platform strategies that support internal BAP needs and also cross-BAP needs.
• SOLUTION DELIVERY
  • Engineering: Develop a solution engineering capability to deliver Rx products and services. Determine the approach balance of in-house and third parties’ services to meet the product strategy. Implement effective and efficient engineering processes to support all phases of the product lifecycle.
  • Product Safety: Work closely with engineers and regulatory experts to identify and mitigate potential risks and failure modes throughout the product lifecycle and ensure that patient safety is prioritized and maintained at all times for all BAP and R project products and solutions.
  • Regulatory Compliance and Quality Assurance: Ensure that Rx BA products meet all necessary regulatory standards and obtains the required approvals for both digital health and medical device components. Work with Quality Assurance stakeholders to ensure robust quality management systems are established and maintained to guarantee safety, efficacy, and user satisfaction.
• OPERATIONS
  • Risk Management and Post-Market Surveillance: Identify potential risks associated with the Rx BA products and solution, both in the digital health and medical device domains. Support the creation and implementation of risk mitigation strategies and establishment of post-market surveillance processes to monitor product performance and gather user feedback for continuous improvement.
  • Product maintenance: Provide services to detect, and anticipate where possible, product failures. Provide services to rectify failures or potential failures rapidly to ensure continuing product availability.
  • Performance Analysis and Metrics: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) for each BAP, to measure the product's success. Support the regular analysis of product performance and use of data to make informed decisions for ongoing improvements.

Quantitative Dimensions:

• Accountable and responsible for the support of product decisions across up to 10 BAPs and up to 20 R projects at any one time, with a total product budget of approximately 5million USD
• Interacts with up to 20 separate external partners at any one time, in relation to on-going projects.
• Supports interactions with 10-15 vendors at any one time

Organizational Context:

• The Rx Head of Product reports on solid-line basis to Senior VP, Rx Business Accelerator Head and is a member of the Rx BA Division Leadership Team.
• Manages a staff of approximately 10-15 direct reports (future), consisting of a product team and a software development team
• Participates in cross-functional committees and ensure optimal deployment of resources with global organization and perspectives in mind.