Senior Manager, Centre Engagement Lead (CEL) - Hematology Benelux

Vertex Pharmaceuticals; Haarlem; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Vertex Pharmaceuticals is seeking a Center Engagement Lead (CEL) to drive hospital center activation for Casgevy in the Netherlands and Belgium. The CEL will coordinate a cross-functional Vertex team to onboard Authorized Treatment Centers and ensure seamless patient journeys from referral to infusion and post-infusion support.

The role is field-based across NL/BE with periodic international travel, focused on operational readiness, training coordination and technical onboarding rather than

Qualifications

• Requires Bachelor’s degree and extensive biotech/pharma cross-functional teamwork experience.
• Proven negotiation and contracting experience.
• Ability to coordinate a cross-functional project team and manage deliverables.
• Willingness to travel internationally as needed.

Responsibilities

• Lead ATC assessment and recommendations for Casgevy in Benelux.
• Serve as primary contact for ATCs and support multiple centers.
• Coordinate ATC contracting and ensure alignment across Legal, Quality and Heme Commercial teams.
• Define onboarding strategy from activation to order readiness, including training.
• Engage with ATCs, physicians and management to support onboarding and ongoing activities.
• Oversee ongoing training measures or audits to ensure high quality ATC service.

Skills

Communication

Negotiation

Project management

Cross-functional coordination

English fluency

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Microsoft Office

Job description

General Summary:

The Center Engagement Lead (CEL) is a Senior Manager role reporting to the Commercial Associate Director for Haematology, Benelux. In this role the CEL will identify transplant centres in the Netherlands and Belgium to become Authorized Treatment Centers (ATCs) for Casgevy, Vertex's novel gene editing therapy for severe Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) and Transfusion Dependent Thalassemia (TDT) patients. The CEL coordinates a cross functional Vertex team to contract and onboard ATCs, and through ongoing engagement, ensures that Healthcare Professionals and Patients are well supported throughout the treatment journey, from patient referral to infusion with Casgevy and post infusion support.

The role is a commercial, non-promotional role, solely focused on operational and technical aspects of the Casgevy treatment process and patient journey (ie operational support, onboarding, technical readiness, training coordination, and process support, not product promotion or demand generation).

The role is field based, supporting activities throughout Netherlands and Belgium, but will on occasions require travel to other locations internationally for meetings and events.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Leads the assessment and recommendation for potential ATCs to activate for Casgevy in Benelux
• Acts as primary point of contact for all stakeholders at ATC and proactively supports multiple ATCs.
• Leads ATC contracting process, ensuring alignment of Vertex internal cross-functional teams (especially Legal, Quality and Heme Commercial) as well as external ATC stakeholders (Physicians, ATC Legal counsel, ATC Quality Managers, Pharmacists, ATC apheresis and infusion teams) to ensure contracts are executed in a timely manner.
• Defines the on-boarding strategy leading from ATC activation (i.e. ATC contracted and quality assessed) to order readiness (i.e. ATC team training on Vertex order portal, ATC apheresis and infusion team trained by Vertex and ready to initiate Casgevy to patients)
• Engages with ATCs, physicians and management teams to support all centre onboarding and activation steps and provides ongoing support post activation to support ATC activities related to Casgevy, helping them to ensure a seamless journey for patients from referral to treatment
• Oversees and coordinates appropriate ongoing training measures or audits of ATCs to ensure consistent and high quality service is delivered by ATCs
• Develops and owns ATC operational readiness plans and objectives (excluding sales) and ensures regular reporting of progress made vs goals.
• Provides guidance to the ATCs to ensure patients can be treated with our gene-editing technology, rapidly and easily after their identification.
• Is the first point of contact for any issue that may arise at ATC level and is able to work quickly and with a solution orientated mind-set to find acceptable solutions for ATC and Vertex Pharmaceuticals
• Because of the unique insights gained in this position, the CEL will play a leading role in the cross-functional launch team
• The CEL will periodically present to Senior Leaders on progress towards goals and make recommendations to Regional teams overseeing Casgevy commercialization to continually improve systems and processes

Knowledge and Skills:

• Outstanding communication skills and the ability support customers on operational onboarding, contracting, technical readiness, training coordination, and process support.
• Strong negotiation and contracting experience gained in similar or other roles
• Ability to coordinate a cross-functional project team and ensure that deliverables are tracked and managed in a timely fashion, knowing when to escalation issues..
• Comfortable navigating uncertainty and managing the demands of a dynamic and fast-growing organization.
• Entrepreneurial approach to problem solving and a hands-on 'can do' attitude.
• Superior project management, organisational and time management skills and able to prioritize and re-prioritize as new insights come to light.
• Solid understanding of the compliance framework with a high level of integrity
• Committed to learning and development.
• Good IT skills e.g., Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook).
• Fluent in English and excellent written and verbal skills with ability to present concisely to Senior Leaders.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelors Degree
• Requires extensive experience in the Biotech/Pharmaceutical or medical technology environment with a track record of successful cross-functional teamwork
• Will have demonstrated in previous roles successful negotiation and contracting experience
• Experience in Cell & Gene therapy desirable but not mandatory

At Vertex, we embrace continuous learning and encourage employees to stay informed on advances in AI, technology, automation, and industry trends. We seek talent who bring an external perspective, demonstrate curiosity and sound judgment, and thoughtfully adopt new capabilities that improve decision-making