Launch Excellence Lead

Career Category

Job Description

What you will do:

As the Launch Excellence Lead within Amgen’s Japan Transformation Office, you will play a crucial role in building and enhancing our new product / new indication product launch excellence. Working closely with the Executive Director – Business Transformation to align on areas of focus, you will engage with brand managers, commercial leaders, medical leaders and cross-functional teams to assess, diagnose, design and implement a launch excellence framework and strategic capability programs to elevate our new product launch practices and ensure a kaizen iterative process of continuous improvement our launch execution. Your expertise in this area will all you to focus on diagnosing, developing solutions to implement and embed to drive executional excellence across all therapeutic areas.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Partnership & Consulting
  Act as an internal consultant, partnering with the marketing team and other relevant functions (Medical Affairs, Sales, Market Access, Regulatory, supply chain, Safety, Quality) to address identified gaps and co-create a launch excellence framework actionable plan for enhancing launch readiness. Provide strategic guidance on best practices and innovative approaches to achieve successful product launches. Creating tailored launch roadmaps that align with brand objectives and market dynamics.
  • Establishing cross-functional launch teams and ensuring seamless collaboration between marketing, medical, sales, and regulatory functions.
  • Segment launch period according to the evolution of major milestones, as identified in launch plan, to be achieved by each function
  • Defining clear KPIs to measure launch success, including HCP adoption, patient access, and market share growth.
  • Conducting launch readiness assessments to identify and mitigate risks pre-launch.
  • In peri-launch, ensure clear tracking and reporting on launch performance, creating clear and simple process for loop feedback, manage hypercare in critical milestones and lead the cross-functional team for understand and review of performance and necessary adaptation or keeping to plan decisions
  • Embedding post-launch optimization strategies to sustain momentum and drive continuous improvement.
     
• Pre-Launch Capability Building
  Design and deliver programs to strengthen pre-launch capabilities, ensuring teams are fully prepared to drive impactful product introductions. Focus areas include:
  • Market & Competitive Intelligence: Equipping teams with tools to gather and interpret data on competitors, market dynamics, and customer insights.
  • Patient centricity: within the model provided by Marketing Excellence, ensure that brand teams work x-functionally and develop vision and strategy regarding current patient journey and “to-be” models
  • Brand Strategy Development: Ensure team establishes clear value propositions, brand narratives, and differentiated positioning strategies.
  • Stakeholder Mapping & Engagement: Identifying and prioritizing key internal and external stakeholders (HCPs, patient groups, payers) and developing tailored engagement strategies.
  • Launch Planning & Scenario Analysis: Building robust, flexible launch plans with contingency and acceleration strategies for various market scenarios.
  • Regulatory & Access Readiness: Partnering with Market Access and Regulatory teams to align on pricing strategies, reimbursement pathways, and approval timelines.
  • Patient experience: partner with Medical so to implement the most adequate EAP program according to the different possible options available in Japan and the therapeutic are and brand value proposition.
     
• Post-Launch Optimization
  Implement processes and tools to monitor, assess, and enhance post-launch performance. Key focus areas include:
  • Performance Tracking: Developing dashboards to measure critical post-launch metrics like account preparedness, account opening, referral pathways, prescription uptake, HCP adoption rates, and patient access progress.
  • Omni-Channel Campaign Evaluation: Analysing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns across digital and traditional channels, making real-time adjustments for maximum impact.
  • Feedback Loops & Insights Gathering: Establishing mechanisms to gather continuous feedback from sales teams, HCPs, and patients to identify areas for ongoing optimization.
  • Post-Launch Reviews: Conducting structured post-launch reviews to capture lessons learned, celebrate successes, and address underperformance.
  • Calibration and input to upcoming new launches: develop process to ensure continuous improvement on future next launches regarding planning, framework and reporting
     
• Assessment & Diagnosis
  Conduct thorough assessments of recent and upcoming new product launches to identify strengths, gaps, and areas for improvement. Utilize data analysis, stakeholder interviews, and performance reviews to diagnose key capability challenges and recommend targeted interventions.
   
• Launch Framework Development
  Design and institutionalize a standardized, best-in-class launch excellence framework that aligns with global and regional strategies while allowing customization for local market dynamics. Ensure the framework covers all critical launch stages — pre-launch planning, launch execution, and post-launch optimization.
   
• Program & Initiative Management
  Lead the creation and rollout of cross-functional initiatives that strengthen launch preparedness — including scenario planning, KPI dashboards, competitive readiness exercises, and launch simulation workshops.
   
• Change Management
  Drive the adoption of new capabilities and processes by embedding change management principles. Develop clear communication plans, stakeholder engagement strategies, and feedback loops to ensure sustainable behaviour shifts within the marketing team and other supporting functions.
   
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
  Facilitate collaboration between marketing, sales, medical, and other functions to ensure seamless execution of new product launch plans. Foster a culture of shared accountability and innovation.
   
• Performance Monitoring
• Establish clear metrics to track and evaluate the success of launch excellence initiatives. Provide ongoing feedback, insights, and performance reports to senior leadership, ensuring continuous improvement and learning.

Win

What we expect of you:

Qualifications

• MBA or Master’s degree in Marketing, Business, Life Sciences, or related fields.
• 7+ years of experience in pharmaceutical marketing, launch excellence, marketing consulting, or commercial excellence roles with a strong focus on capability building & driving launch excellence.
• Strong project management skills with a proven track record in developing and executing launch strategies.
• Expertise in change management principles and their application within marketing and cross-functional teams.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Proficiency in data-driven decision-making and the use of analytics tools to measure program success.
• Strong ability to assess marketing functions, use data-driven insights, and design strategic solutions tailored to the healthcare sector.
• Exceptional presentation and storytelling skills, with the ability to simplify complex concepts for diverse internal audiences.
• Demonstrated success in guiding internal teams, influencing senior stakeholders, and driving the adoption of new capabilities.

Interpersonal skills and competencies:

• Strong communication and exceptional interpersonal and storytelling skills.
• Analytical skills and strategic thinking.
• Strong at problem solving skills and good data sense.
• Ability to build strong working relationships with internal and external customers.
• Ability to manage ambiguity and keep direction.
• Proven ability to enact change quickly.
• Team player with ability to work closely with cross functional departments in planning, monitoring, and implementing strategic business plans.
• Ability to develop a network of opinions leaders.
• Role model for Amgen’s Values.

How This Role Will Be Measured (including but not limited to)

• Capability Uplift: Demonstrated improvement in marketing team’s knowledge and skills around launch excellence as evidenced by pre- and post-training assessments.
• Launch Readiness Scores: Adoption of a launch readiness scorecard to assess the preparedness of each new product launch.
• Cross-Functional Engagement: Measured participation and collaboration rates across teams in launch planning activities.
• Change Adoption: Degree of adoption of new processes, tools, and frameworks by marketing and cross-functional teams.
• Time-to-Impact: Reduction in time to achieve key launch milestones (e.g., brand strategy finalization, campaign deployment).
• Business Impact: Tangible contribution to successful product launches, reflected in post-launch performance indicators like market share uptake, HCP adoption rates, and patient access improvements.