Associate Director, Market Research

Job Description

AD, Primary Market Research

Focus Area: Infectious Diseases with a primary focus on HIV

Our Marketing team is passionate about bringing our medicines and vaccines to our customers around the world. Through digital listening and patient analytics, we can understand our customers’ needs and strive to provide solutions to meet them. At our Company, we are leveraging insights, analytics and technology, as we invent for life on behalf of patients around the world. We are seeking those who have a passion for using strategic insights, data and analytics to drive decision making, that will allow us to tackle some of the world’s greatest health threats.

Within our commercial Insights, Analytics, and Data organization we are transforming to better power decision-making across our end-to-end commercialization process, from business development to late lifecycle management. As we endeavor, we are seeking a dynamic talent for the role of Associate Director, Primary Market Research .

Position Description:

The Market Research Associate Director will be a main point of contact for their assigned areas of responsibility for our product's marketing / commercial team. The position will plan, prioritize, manage, and execute a scope of work within the HIV therapeutic area, spanning both pre- and post-launch. Specifically, the focus of this role will be for Infectious Disease, most notably HIV and any future assets in this domain. Responsibilities include providing strategic input to the extended global team via primary market research projects and secondary data analysis by proactively defining business questions and opportunities, identifying strategic insights, and recommending actionable business solutions. The Associate Director will also help advance the evolution of Primary Market Research by leveraging AI-enabled research, analytics, and knowledge management capabilities to accelerate insight generation, enhance decision-making, and identify innovative approaches to understanding customers, markets, and business opportunities.

This person is expected to be an exceptional team player who can comfortably interact with and add value to the existing market research team as well as strategically partner with extended team members including pricing and access, sales, promotion and marketing. The Associate Director will consistently demonstrate strong leadership skills with an ability to work independently in a rapidly changing environment with a transformational mindset, cultural awareness and resiliency to change. The successful candidate should have an understanding of emerging AI-powered market research methodologies and capabilities including but not limited to synthetic respondents and digital personas and will embrace emerging technologies and data-driven ways of working, while ensuring the responsible, compliant, and effective application of AI and advanced analytics to support business objectives.

Key responsibilities include and are not limited to the following:

Market Research & Analytics:

• Develop and oversee execution of an assigned portion of the Global and US market research plan within the product franchise with a strategic mindset and minimal supervision.

• Provide leadership and strategic thinking for assigned primary market research projects for our product including framing critical business questions, identification of information needs, identifying considerations from other data sources, development of research/analysis plans and management of the research process to deliver an objective understanding of key customers, competitors’ products and current/future market developments.

• Take full ownership of understanding the business challenges/information needs, consider alternatives, propose appropriate methods and approaches, apply best practices, and proactively consider and/or develop new techniques and innovations to meet objectives.

• Proficient in various market research methodologies and research techniques to design effective research studies

• Evaluate and apply innovative market research approaches and emerging technologies, including AI-assisted synthesis, advanced analytics, digital personas, simulated respondents, and connected insights ecosystems, where appropriate to address business needs and inform strategic decisions

• Complete analyses using available secondary data, syndicated reports and databases and integrate findings into primary market research efforts to build and tell a compelling story and deliver concise and actionable results, on an as-needed basis

Project Management:

• Lead execution of market research studies, including project planning, budget management, vendor briefing, timeline oversight, compliance requirements, and delivery of actionable insights and recommendations, including innovative options.

• Clearly articulate the business rationale, hypotheses, methodology, and expected impact of research approaches to managers and franchise/client teams, ensuring alignment to business objectives.

• Evaluate, select, and manage external research partners based on methodological expertise, technical capabilities, quality standards, innovation potential, and ability to deliver against business needs.

• Assess vendor capabilities in AI-enabled research methodologies and analytics solutions, ensuring appropriate application, compliance, transparency, methodological rigor, and measurable business value.

• Proactively engage marketing/commercial teams to ensure insights are integrated into decision-making and planning; synthesize findings across multiple sources to frame strategic options and provide consultative guidance.

Proactive Collaboration

• Partner proactively with cross-functional business partners, including marketing communications, market access, commercial teams, and agency partners, to ensure insights are integrated into launch and post-launch activities.

• Collaborate with forecasting and analytics teams to inform strategic assumptions, track key performance indicators, and support benchmarking dashboards that guide business decisions.

• Partner with analytics, data strategy, and other insights functions to advance the use of novel data sources, including Real World Data, AI-enabled analytics, and connected insights capabilities.

• Work on and lead ad hoc franchise-wide initiatives as needed.

Position Qualifications:

Education:

• Minimum Required: BA/BS degree in Business, Marketing, Healthcare or related field

• Preferred: MBA, MS, MPH or other advanced degree in relevant discipline

Knowledge and Skills:

• Minimum of eight (8) years of experience in marketing market research and analytics; prior experience may include market research, analytics, sales, forecasting, access and pricing, marketing or competitive intelligence

• Well-developed analytical and problem-solving skills; demonstrated ability to think strategically and objectively

• Expertise in quantitative and qualitative research methodologies and working knowledge of secondary data, analytics and epidemiology data sources.

• Proven ability to synthesize data and research outputs into compelling, actionable insights through effective storytelling and executive-ready communication

• Strategic consulting mindset, with ability to quickly establish trust, build credibility, and influence effective partnerships across multiple stakeholders and team members

• Technical aptitude and curiosity to build expertise in current and emerging market research approaches, including AI-enabled tools, advanced analytics, and innovative insight-generation methods.

• Ability to prioritize and manage multiple requests from marketing partners, commercial stakeholders, and extended team members in a fast-paced environment

• Strong communication skills and demonstrated ability to lead change, support transformation, and promote new ways of working

Preferred Knowledge and Skills:

• AI fluency and experience applying responsible, compliant AI-enabled market research and analytics capabilities to accelerate insight generation and enhance decision-making. Hands-on experience with LLM tools/apps and basic understanding of prompt engineering.

• Experience supporting launch excellence, early commercial development, and/or lifecycle planning

• Familiarity with marketing strategy development

• Demonstrated leadership behaviors, including customer focus, sound decision-making, courage and candor, collaboration, and accountability.

• Strong project leadership skills, with the ability to manage complexity, balance competing priorities, and deliver high-quality work in a fast-paced environment

• Ability to motivate without authority

• Ability to support transformation, manage change, and promote adoption of new tools, capabilities and ways of working

Required Skills:

Business Analysis, Business Decisions, Business Metrics, Business Opportunity Identification, Competency Management, Influencing Skills, Influencing Without Authority, Insight Generation, Key Metrics, Market Analysis, Market Research, Market Research Reports, Primary Capital Markets, Product Rollouts, Stakeholder Relationship Management, Strategic Analysis, Strategic Recommendations, Strategic Thinking, Supplier Management, Waterfall Model

Preferred Skills:

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The salary range for this role is

$156,900.00 - $247,000.00

This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs.

The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at

You can apply for this role through (or via the Workday Jobs Hub if you are a current employee). The application deadline for this position is stated on this posting.

San Francisco Residents Only: We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance

Los Angeles Residents Only: We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance

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Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

VISA Sponsorship:

Travel Requirements:

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Valid Driving License:

Hazardous Material(s):

Job Posting End Date:

09/1/2026

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