Associate Director, Scientific Intelligence & AI

Overview

In this role you shape the AI-enabled Medical Affairs agenda at Novartis, turning strategy into tangible products and measurable outcomes. You work across International and Global Medical Affairs, Commercial, and enterprise AI teams to scale high-impact AI solutions that accelerate insights and improve patient care. You lead rapid AI experimentation and ensure responsible, compliant use of AI in scientific workflows. This is a mission-driven, cross-functional role at the intersection of medicine, AI, and product innovation.

Pay / Benefits

• flexible and hybrid working options
• insurance plans
• retirement plans
• wellbeing resources
• global recognition programs
• minimum 14 weeks paid parental leave

Responsibilities

• Translate the International Medical Affairs AI strategy into high-impact initiatives, products, and measurable business outcomes
• Identify, evaluate, and prioritise high-value AI opportunities across Medical Affairs, regions, and countries
• Define product vision, user journeys, roadmaps, and success metrics for AI-enabled solutions
• Lead rapid experimentation and prototyping of Generative AI and agentic AI use cases to validate business value
• Partner with enterprise AI, Technology, Data, Analytics, Commercial, and Value & Access teams to maximise reuse and scalability
• Drive adoption of AI-enabled solutions by embedding them into Medical workflows and demonstrating measurable impact
• Ensure responsible AI principles, scientific integrity, privacy, compliance, and human oversight are embedded by design
• Foster cross-functional collaboration and thought leadership to accelerate AI innovation across International Medical Affairs

Key requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences, Medicine, Pharmacy, Business, Technology, Data Science, AI, Engineering, or related discipline; advanced degree preferred
• Significant experience driving AI and digital transformation initiatives within the pharmaceutical or life sciences industry
• Experience translating business or scientific needs into digital or AI-enabled products, roadmaps, and measurable outcomes
• Proven track record progressing initiatives from discovery and experimentation through governance, adoption, and scale
• Practical fluency in Generative AI, LLM-enabled applications, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), agentic AI, prompting methodologies, AI evaluation, and human-in-the-loop approaches
• Strong product management capabilities across user discovery, prioritization, roadmap development, experimentation, and value realization
• Excellent communication, executive storytelling, influencing, and matrix leadership skills for senior stakeholders
• Proficient English language skills, both written and spoken

• Cross-functional collaboration
• Influencing and executive storytelling
• Strategic thinking and leadership
• Generative AI
• Large Language Models (LLMs)
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

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