Head of Access, Pricing & External Engagement

Make your mark for patients

We are looking for a Head of Access to join us in our Access, Pricing and External Engagement (APEX) team, based out of our office in Oakville, ON or Montreal, QC

About the role

The Head of Access leads the Access Pricing and External Engagement Department to drive revenue and growth for the organization by providing consistent strategic direction to facilitate the development of rewarding relationships/partnerships with key national and regional public and private drug plans (payers), leading to positive negotiations and ultimately the acceptance of the company’s products in an appropriate formulary position.

Who you’ll work with

Member of UCB Canada Inc. Senior Leadership Team. The Head APEX plays a key role in interfacing with Regional and Global functional and business teams.

Critical for this role will be to establish the value of UCB products with relevant stakeholders, to orient to a value-based rather than price-based dialogue with Payers. Requires a thorough understanding of all provincial and federal reimbursement agencies, policies, and regulations.

The Head APEX is responsible for leading all public relations and related communication activities for both the company and for key brands.

The Head APEX is responsible for leading the company’s pricing activities, to ensure that product prices are optimized to balance both revenue growth and reimbursement opportunities at levels that are aligned with UCB’s strategy. This includes ongoing liaison and reporting requirements for the Patent Medicines Prices Review Board.

The role requires expertise in all key existing and developing public policies impacting the pharmaceutical sector and ensuring that UCB is well positioned for continued policy shaping and influence that enables growth within this environment. In this respect, the Head APEX will lead the company’s activities with industry associations and will participate in their activities.

What you’ll do

• Oversee the development of the access, pricing, and external engagement strategy for products across their full lifecycle. Orchestrate the planning and execution of all reimbursement functions and implementation of all tactics and processes to ensure the reimbursement of UCB products on major Canadian public and private formularies, including all leading negotiations with Health Technology Assessment agencies (e.g. CRA, INESSS), including competitive analysis and HTA insights, new product launches, contracting strategies throughout products’ lifecycle, outcomes research, medical, support systems and budgeting requirements.
• Establish strong, sustainable relationships with multiple points of contact within key payers/patient groups/health care organizations and move UCB beyond supplier to strategic partnerships.
• Demonstrate excellence in understanding of each payer including: their key policies, regulations and practices, reimbursement systems (including funding flows by site of care), organization for health care delivery, and processes for disease management and outcomes research.
• Lead the team for preparation of health economic analyses, budget impact analyses, clinical summaries, submission binders for all UCB products to ensure rapid and appropriate formulary uptake.
• Develop pricing strategies for all UCB products to ensure formulary uptake whilst maximizing revenues. Lead affiliate activities for approvals of Gross and Net price for the Canada Market.
• Liaise with the Patent Medicines Prices Review Board, ensuring that the company is compliant with all their reporting requirements.
• Lead UCB’s team in negotiations with the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA) as well as individual public and private drug plans in Canada.
• Develop, coordinate and implement stakeholder engagement strategies to ensure support for formulary submissions, including key medical groups and professional associations, disease associations, patient advocacy associations, and elected and non-elected government officials.
• Develop appropriate public awareness campaigns, including media outreach programs, to support reimbursement submissions.
• Develop and implement communications and public relations strategies to shape the policy and stakeholder environment to ensure that UCB and its products are well positioned for both sales uptake and for positive public perception. This will include coordination of cross-functional matrix teams within UCB and management of external agencies to undertake effective and efficient outreach programs.
• Demonstrate expertise and lead all outreach activities for key existing and developing public policies impacting the pharmaceutical sector and ensuring that UCB is well positioned for continued growth within this environment. Independently lead the companies’ activities with industry associations (e.g.: BioteCanada, IMC) and participate in appropriate activities in order to protect and promote UCBs interests with key decision makers and influencers.
• Provide direction and communicate the Market Access vision and mission to the UCB management team as well as national and regional customers.
• Proactively identify payer needs and business opportunities and ensure that those are rapidly incorporated into business plans and executed appropriately.
• Ensure that UCB achieve sales, market share growth, and ROI targets through a relentless focus on customer needs, UCB business opportunities and priorities, a commitment to excellence and superior execution.
• Demonstrate outstanding sales, communication, negotiation and project management skills and knowledge of UCB products while establishing UCB as a preferred partner with key payers.
• Develop and lead multi-disciplined customer teams, aligning key customer and UCB functional areas including Operations/Finance, Medical, Legal, Marketing, Sales, G3P, digital business transformation and Executive Management.
• Build and lead a high-performance market access team by securing the best available talent, developing future leaders, encouraging the pursuit of developmental opportunities and by providing ongoing coaching and feedback.
• Actively participate in the Canadian Leadership Team, defining outlook and direction for the affiliate in line with the Patient Value Units’ mission and vision.
• Engage in strong long-term relationships with payers and other stakeholders and act as the "one voice" to high level payers and institutional affairs stakeholders; build on the high ethical standards that UCB is following as a credible patient-centric organization.
• Further digital engagement initiatives with Payers and Payer stakeholders.
• Challenge the status quo and develop together with team innovative access solutions to accommodate UCB’s and payers’ needs

Interested? For this role we’re looking for the following education, experience and skills

• Bachelors Degree, Masters Degree preferred
• Outstanding performance in Market Access / Reimbursement, Communications, Government Relations / Lobbying, and several of the following functions Financial Management, Public Policy Analysis, Sales, Marketing, Business-to-Business sales or HCM sales, and digital business transformation.
• Demonstrated excellence with business plan development, business management, reimbursement submission development, communications planning and execution, negotiation, policy shaping and analysis.
• Expertise in Canadian bio-pharmaceutical market: reimbursement, pricing, policy
• analysis, communications, competitive trends and the impact on our key products.
• Experience in contracting, launching, or gaining access with payers.
• Outstanding performance and demonstrated leadership skills in managing and influencing teams.
• Demonstrated excellence in account management, relationship development and account penetration.
• Excellent understanding of pharmaceutical marketing processes.
• Demonstrated strength in business planning and tactical plan development and execution.
• Excellent understanding of basic finance, return on investment and profitability analysis.
• Excellent understanding of clinical and marketing information on UCB and competitor’s products.
• Bi-lingual (English/French) preferred

This positions reasonably anticipated base salary range is $196,000-$258,000. The actual salary offered will take into account related knowledge, skills, experience and location among other factors and may fall outside the expected range.

Are you ready to ‘go beyond’ to create value and make your mark for patients? If this sounds like you, then we would love to hear from you!

About us
UCB is a global biopharmaceutical company, focusing on neurology and immunology. We are over 9.000 people in all four corners of the globe, inspired by patients and driven by science.

We’ve embraced a hybrid-first approach to work, bringing teams together in local hubs to foster collaborative curiosity. Unless expressly stated in the description or precluded by the nature of the position, roles are hybrid with 40% of your time spent in the office.

Why work with us?
At UCB, we don’t just complete tasks, we create value. We aren’t afraid to push forward, collaborate, and innovate to make our mark for patients. We have a caring, supportive culture where everyone feels included, respected, and has equal opportunities to do their best work. We ‘go beyond’ to create value for our patients, and always with a human focus, whether that’s on our patients, our employees, or our planet. Working for us, you will discover a place where you can grow, and have the freedom to carve your own career path to achieve your full potential.

UCB is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions will be made without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable laws.

We are committed to fostering an inclusive, accessible environment, where all employees and members feel valued, respected, and supported. We are committed to meeting the accessibility needs of persons with disabilities.

If you require an accommodation for the recruitment/interview process (e.g. alternate formats of materials, accessible meeting rooms or other accommodation), please contact HRAnswers@ucb.com and we will work with you to meet your needs.

Please note that our hiring process includes the use of artificial intelligence (AI). All final hiring decisions are made by our hiring teams.