Head of Strategic Marketing and Commercial Development

PolyPeptide Group AG and its consolidated subsidiaries (“PolyPeptide”) is a focused Contract Development & Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) for peptide- and oligonucleotide-based active pharmaceutical ingredients. By supporting its customers mainly in pharma and biotech, it contributes to the health of millions of patients across the world.

PolyPeptide offers products and services from pre-clinical through to commercial stages, including generics. Its active custom projects pipeline reflects the opportunities from novel drug therapies in development to fight both widespread and rare diseases. Dating back to 1952, PolyPeptide today runs a global network of six cGMP-certified facilities in Europe, the U.S. and India. PolyPeptide Group AG’s shares (SIX: PPGN) are listed on SIX Swiss Exchange.

ABOUT US

PolyPeptide is one of the world’s leading independent contractual manufacturers of therapeutic peptides for medicine and cosmetics. The PolyPeptide Group is present with sites in Switzerland, France, Belgium, India, Sweden, and US and employs approximately 1200 co-workers. The Group is listed on the Swiss stock exchange and manufactures more than a third of all approved peptide substances for medicine in the world.

ABOUT THE ROLE

PolyPeptide Group is searching for a highly business and customer oriented Head of Global Strategic Marketing and Commercial Development, responsible for driving the company’s commercial development, marketing strategy and execution of marketing plans. The role requires a deep understanding of the pharmaceutical landscape, exceptional commercial leadership skills, and the ability to collaborate across cross-functional teams to achieve long-term commercial objectives.

The role is located in Switzerland (Baar, ZG), with regular presence at the office. You will be able to travel and interact internationally across time zones according to the requirements of the international role.

Duties of the role

• Set-up and execute strategic marketing plan to drive compelling market differentiation in line with company goal by measuring engagement metrics on media platforms, Net Promoter Score, Customer Acquisition Cost, and ROI of marketing campaigns, conferences, and webinars. Develop and maintain the marketing plan with a strong focus on positioning and differentiating current and future offering from the competition.
• Define and implement appropriate market initiatives to generate new demand and growth by performing a competitive analysis to identify gaps in the market that your company can fill. Analyze market trends, technological advancements, and regulatory changes. Assess the market landscape, conduct competitive analysis and establish growth projection plans. Identify key competitors in the market and categorize them based on size, market share, growth trajectory, and market influence. Analyze their product offerings, pricing strategies, marketing approaches, customer service, and distribution channels. Use SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to evaluate competitors’ positions relative to your company.
• Deliver plan in collaboration with stakeholders for asset specific growth with commercial viability. Support business strategy discussions and analysis to define which key capabilities and offerings are required by the market. Collaborate on strategy development for the business with a focus on defining and expanding offerings and closing value chain gaps.
• Collaborate with functional leaders to establish strategic needs to improve business performance and customer satisfaction. Utilize data analytics and customer feedback to identify areas of attention. Prioritize needs based on impact, feasibility, and alignment with business goals. Define key performance indicators (KPIs) for each initiative that reflect business outcomes and customer satisfaction.
• Set strategic top line revenue goals across the assets and collaborate with sales leads on associated sales goals / targets. By analyzing historical performance, market conditions, and aligning with long-term business objectives, followed by collaboration with sales leads to define realistic sales targets for each asset. Regular review and adaptation to ensure alignment with financial capabilities and market dynamics, by ongoing communication among all stakeholders. Collaborate cross functionally to shape appropriate demand planning prioritization to deliver business goals. Support business cases and CAPEX justifications for capacity expansion, facility build-outs and acquisitions.
• Work with business leaders to set guidance for business models and agreement terms and conditions. Monitor the sales funnel to assess performance and actively identify outbound leads to enhance our sales strategy (cold emails, linkedin automations). Forge strategic partnerships, and advance the company’s pipeline through informed decision-making, commercial analysis, and market insights. Partner with Legal to ensure contractual framework delivers commercial and operational goals for the company and its partners.
• Collaborate with the innovation team to develop a market driven innovation portfolio messaging (e.g. newsletters, social media, website). Shape innovation portfolio communication / marketing / messaging, from ideation to launch of new service offerings including market insights to the technology roadmap, business justification and assessment of projects, developing and implementing launch plans.
• Lead commercial development and strategic marketing members to set regional specific goals, based on competitive analysis, and growth strategies. Create clear and actionable KPIs that are regularly monitored and supported by ongoing communication among all stakeholders. Work with sales assessing leads and assure alignment with business strategy and optimization of portfolio from a revenue and margin perspective. Monitor the funnel do identify outbound leads.
• Develop training plans and provide training to new and existing sales / business development colleagues by establishing clear KPIs for developing and implementing training plans by measuring completion rates, post-training performance improvements, and feedback scores from new and existing sales / business development colleagues.
• Collaborate closely with Corporate Communication to develop, implement, and update the Marketing Communication Strategy, and ensure alignment with the corporate brand and strategic messaging (case studies, newsletters, Linkedin, webinars, etc). Represent the company at trade shows and conferences; work closely with the commercial team and corporate communications to deliver vision, mission and value proposition. Create engaging scientific presentations and trainings, and present to a scientific audience.

YOUR PROFILE

• Relevant degree in life sciences. Scientific PhD, and additional business degree (Executive MBA).
• Several years of relevant industry experience (biopharmaceutical, pharmaceutical, CDMO), with Peptide API (bio)manufacturing  experience a prerequisite.
• Several years of experience in commercial roles (marketing, sales, business development, commercial development).
• In-depth experience and track record in shaping long term marketing and commercial strategic goal setting and implementation plans.
• Proven ability and experience in development and delivery of commercial, technical, scientifically grounded, presentations and content to an international audience of industry experts.
• Deep understanding of business and financial fundamentals and implications on commercial strategy and target setting.
• Excellent communication and relationship building skills with external and internal stakeholders; ability to work effectively in a matrix environment and gain the buy-in of stakeholders.
• Demonstrated excellent interpersonal, presentation, time management, organizational, training, and written and oral communication skills.
• Willingness to challenge the status quo and provide creative, effective and (cost-)efficient solutions to identified business challenges.
• Strong level of accuracy, attention to details, facts, numbers, KPIs, with the ability to derive executive recommendations from market insights based on a magnitude of data and trends.
• Highly motivated, with the ability to take a highly proactive and hands-on approach on the job. Used to working in and taking self responsibility in a small team. Able to work under pressure and to deal with conflicting priorities.
• Acts with a high degree of customer focus, flexibility and solution focus, and as role model for PolyPeptide’s values of innovation, excellence and trust.
• Able to work in an international environment and deal with cultural differences, and to lead and engage global teams spread on different sites.
• Able to travel frequently (internationally) according to the requirements of the global role.
• Fluent business English and French

Does this sound like an exciting challenge?

PolyPeptide offers a great work environment where our co-workers and business are allowed to grow together. We have an open and welcoming atmosphere and are proud of our workplace since we work with the purpose of making life better for patients around the world.

If you enjoy challenges and find it rewarding to influence and improve, we hope that you will find this position intriguing. If you are interested, please submit your application, your CV and a personal letter as soon as possible. We will review the applications ongoing. For additional information regarding this position please contact Monika Casanova, CHRO, at monika.casanova@polypeptide.com.