Title: Medical Advisor
|
Department |
Global Medical Affairs |
|
Reporting to |
Vice President, Global Medical Affairs |
|
Location |
India |
|
Position type |
Full-time, individual contributor |
|
People management |
None |
|
Travel |
Domestic India and selected international travel |
At Sun Pharma, we commit to helping you “Create your own sunshine”— by fostering an environment where you grow at every step, take charge of your journey and thrive in a supportive community.
Are You Ready to Create Your Own Sunshine?
As you enter the Sun Pharma world, you’ll find yourself becoming ‘Better every day’ through continuous progress. Exhibit self-drive as you ‘Take charge’ and lead with confidence. Additionally, demonstrate a collaborative spirit, knowing that we ‘Thrive together’ and support each other’s journeys.”
Position Summary
The Medical Advisor, Global Medical Affairs is an India-based, globally aligned scientific role supporting the development and execution of medical strategies across the immunology, dermatology, dermato-oncology and future specialty-care portfolio. The role reports directly to the Vice President, Global Medical Affairs and operates as a member of the Global Medical Affairs organization, while collaborating with colleagues across regions and functions.
This is a purely technical individual-contributor position with no direct or indirect people-management responsibility. The successful candidate will be expected to demonstrate the scientific depth, strategic thinking, ownership and cross-functional influence needed to grow into broader Global Medical Affairs leadership responsibilities over time.
Role Purpose
- Provide high-quality scientific and medical support to global asset and therapeutic-area strategies.
- Translate clinical evidence, external insights and competitive developments into actionable medical recommendations.
- Advance evidence generation, scientific communications, publications, congress strategy and external expert engagement.
- Act as a trusted scientific partner across Global Medical Affairs and relevant cross-functional teams while maintaining medical independence, scientific integrity and compliance.
Key Responsibilities
1. Global Medical Strategy & Asset Support
- Support the development, refinement and execution of global medical strategies and annual medical plans for assigned assets and therapeutic areas.
- Conduct disease-landscape, evidence-gap and competitor assessments, and translate findings into strategic recommendations.
- Contribute scientific input to asset lifecycle planning, launch readiness, indication expansion and future portfolio opportunities.
- Prepare high-quality strategic briefs, decision documents, evidence summaries and leadership presentations.
- Coordinate defined global workstreams and ensure timely, high-quality delivery against agreed objectives.
2. Scientific & Therapeutic-Area Expertise
- Develop and maintain broad scientific expertise across immunology, inflammatory dermatology, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, autoimmune skin disease, dermato-oncology and relevant oncology topics.
- Critically evaluate clinical-trial data, real-world evidence, treatment guidelines, evolving standards of care and emerging science.
- Serve as a credible scientific resource for internal stakeholders and contribute to scientifically balanced decision-making.
- Identify scientific, clinical-practice and patient-care gaps that may inform future medical initiatives.
3. Evidence Generation & Research
- Support the strategy, design, review and execution of Global Medical Affairs evidence-generation activities, including real-world evidence, observational studies, registries, Medical Affairs studies, outcomes research and patient-centered evidence.
- Support the scientific evaluation and governance of investigator-initiated research proposals.
- Contribute to protocol concepts, research questions, endpoints, evidence tables, study documents and interpretation of results.
- Collaborate with Clinical Development, HEOR, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Pharmacovigilance and regional Medical Affairs to ensure relevant and rigorous evidence generation.
- Monitor project quality, milestones and scientific outputs for assigned studies and evidence workstreams.
4. Publications & Scientific Communications
- Support publication strategy and execution, including abstracts, posters, manuscripts, congress presentations and associated publication-planning activities.
- Develop and review scientific platforms, core medical decks, FAQs, evidence summaries, training materials, advisory-board content and congress deliverables.
- Ensure accuracy, balance, consistency and appropriate referencing across scientific materials.
- Partner effectively with authors, agencies, vendors and internal review teams while preserving authorship standards, scientific integrity and publication ethics.
5. External Expert & Scientific Engagement
- Support mapping and prioritization of global, regional and India-based scientific experts and investigators.
- Participate in compliant, peer-to-peer scientific exchange with external experts and capture actionable medical insights.
- Support planning and execution of advisory boards, expert meetings, investigator interactions and scientific educational initiatives.
- Synthesize external insights, validate themes and communicate implications to Global Medical Affairs and cross-functional teams.
- Represent Global Medical Affairs at selected scientific meetings and professional forums.
6. Congress & Competitive Intelligence
- Support medical planning for key national and international congresses, including data monitoring, session prioritization and stakeholder engagement.
- Provide timely congress intelligence, competitor-data assessments and post-congress scientific summaries.
- Translate relevant external developments into potential implications for global medical strategy and evidence priorities.
- Attend one or two major international scientific congresses annually when aligned with business need and approved plans.
7. Cross-Functional & Global Collaboration
- Collaborate with Global Medical Affairs Leads and colleagues in Clinical Development, Regulatory Affairs, HEOR, Market Access, Medical Information, Pharmacovigilance, Biostatistics, Commercial and country or regional Medical Affairs.
- Provide independent, evidence-based medical input while maintaining appropriate Medical Affairs governance and non-promotional standards.
- Work effectively across geographies, cultures and time zones, including participation in global meetings outside standard India business hours when reasonably required.
- Build effective partnerships and influence outcomes without formal authority.
8. Medical Governance, Quality & Compliance
- Perform all activities in accordance with applicable laws, industry codes, company policies, standard operating procedures and Global Medical Affairs governance.
- Support scientific and medical review of relevant materials and initiatives within assigned responsibilities.
- Maintain appropriate documentation, quality standards, data privacy and inspection readiness.
- Escalate scientific, safety, ethical or compliance concerns promptly through appropriate channels.
Required Qualifications
Education
- MBBS and MD Pharmacology are mandatory minimum qualifications.
- Additional formal training in clinical research, epidemiology, biostatistics, evidence-based medicine, medical writing or a relevant therapeutic area is desirable.
Experience
- Typically 5 to 10 years of relevant pharmaceutical-industry experience, with demonstrated progression in Medical Affairs responsibilities.
- Experience working in a multinational pharmaceutical company is required.
- Prior experience in Global Medical Affairs or meaningful collaboration with global Medical Affairs teams is strongly preferred.
- Relevant experience in immunology, dermatology, dermato-oncology, oncology or specialty medicines. Breadth across more than one of these areas is preferred.
- Demonstrated experience in several of the following: medical strategy, evidence generation, publications, scientific communications, KOL engagement, advisory boards, congress activities, launch support or lifecycle management.
- Experience working in a matrix organization and collaborating across countries and functions.
- Experience with biologics, immunotherapies or specialty products is desirable.
Scientific & Technical Capabilities
- Ability to critically appraise clinical and real-world evidence and explain its strategic relevance clearly.
- Working knowledge of clinical research methodology, study design, endpoints, statistics, ICH-GCP and publication standards.
- Ability to write and review accurate, concise and scientifically balanced medical content.
- Understanding of appropriate interactions with healthcare professionals and applicable Indian and global compliance requirements.
- Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office and comfort using digital and AI-enabled tools responsibly within approved company frameworks.
Core Competencies & Leadership Potential
- Scientific rigor: Demonstrates intellectual honesty, critical thinking and evidence-based judgment.
- Ownership: Takes accountability for quality, timelines and outcomes without requiring close supervision.
- Learning agility: Rapidly develops expertise in unfamiliar assets, mechanisms and disease areas.
- Strategic thinking: Connects scientific evidence to unmet need, asset strategy and patient impact.
- Collaboration: Works constructively across functions, regions and cultures and supports collective success.
- Influence without authority: Builds credibility, communicates clearly and advances decisions through sound reasoning.
- Courage and integrity: Raises concerns respectfully and protects Medical Affairs independence and scientific standards.
- Adaptability: Remains effective in a changing, evolving and resource-conscious global environment.
- Executive communication: Distills complex information into clear recommendations for senior and cross-functional audiences.
- Future leadership potential: Demonstrates curiosity, maturity, enterprise thinking and the capacity to assume broader Global Medical Affairs responsibilities over time.
Travel & Working Model
- India-based role with domestic travel for investigator meetings, expert engagement, scientific programs and business needs.
- International travel for selected Global Medical Affairs meetings, planning workshops or other approved business activities.
- Expected attendance at one or two international scientific congresses annually, based on assigned therapeutic area and business priorities.
- Overall travel is expected to be approximately 20 to 30%, subject to business needs and company policy.
- Periodic participation in early-morning or evening global calls may be required to collaborate across time zones.
Measures of Success
- Quality and timeliness of contributions to global medical strategy and asset priorities.
- Scientific rigor and usefulness of evidence assessments, recommendations and medical deliverables.
- Effective execution of assigned evidence-generation, publication, congress and expert-engagement workstreams.
- Ability to convert external insights and emerging evidence into actionable strategic recommendations.
- Cross-functional and cross-regional collaboration, reliability and stakeholder trust.
- Consistent compliance with medical governance, quality and ethical standards.
- Demonstrated growth in therapeutic-area expertise, strategic ownership and readiness for broader responsibilities.
Role Scope Clarification
|
This position has no direct reports and no formal managerial responsibilities. The role may lead scientific projects or cross-functional workstreams through expertise and influence, but accountability for people management is not part of the position. |
Why This Role Matters
This role provides the opportunity to contribute directly to global medical strategy while being based in India, work across a diverse specialty portfolio, engage with scientific experts and global colleagues, and build the breadth and capabilities required for future leadership in Global Medical Affairs.