Merck KGaA Posted October 16, 2026

Director, Regional Medical Affairs Lead - MEAR - Oncology & Rare Tumors (all genders)

Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia FULL_TIME
Medical Affairs Oncology Director
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Merck KGaA is the source of truth for this posting and owns the application process. We surface normalized context and market comparison you won't find on the original listing.

About this opportunity

Work Your Magic with us!

Ready to explore, break barriers, and discover more? We know you’ve got big plans – so do we! Our colleagues across the globe love innovating with science and technology to enrich people’s lives with our solutions in Healthcare, Life Science, and Electronics. Together, we dream big and are passionate about caring for our rich mix of people, customers, patients, and planet. That's why we are always looking for curious minds that see themselves imagining the unimaginable with us.

United As One for Patients, our purpose in Healthcare is to help create, improve and prolong lives. We develop medicines, intelligent devices and innovative technologies in therapeutic areas such as Oncology, Neurology and Fertility. Our teams work together across 6 continents with passion and relentless curiosity in order to help patients at every stage of life. Joining our Healthcare team is becoming part of a diverse, inclusive and flexible working culture, presenting great opportunities for personal development and career advancement across the globe.

Your Role

At the intersection of global medical strategy and regional patient reality, this Director level role carries real weight. As the Regional Medical Affairs Lead for the Middle East, Africa, and Russia (MEAR) region within the Oncology and Rare Tumors therapeutic area, you will serve as the critical bridge between global medical strategy and the countries that bring it to life. You will translate evidence based global priorities into meaningful regional medical plans, and equally, you will ensure that country level insights, unmet patient needs, and scientific realities shape the decisions made at the global level.

Operating with considerable autonomy, you will lead regional medical readiness for launches, new indications, and major data milestones. You will connect country medical  teams with the scientific expertise, evidence, and narrative they need, while partnering closely with Commercial, Market Access,Regulatory, and Clinical Development colleagues across the region. You will represent Medical Affairs with scientific independence and integrity, escalating strategic issues to global leadership and enabling cross country learning and collaboration.

This is a role for a senior medical professional who thrives in complexity, influences without authority, and is motivated by improving outcomes for patients across diverse healthcare environments.

Who You Are

You bring deep therapeutic expertise, a strategic mindset, and the ability to lead through influence across a complex, multi country environment.

You hold an advanced degree in medicine, pharmacy, or a relevant life science, and bring substantial Medical Affairs experience with strong expertise in oncology or rare tumors.

You have 10 or more years of experience in the pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical industry, including Medical Affairs roles at country, regional, or global level.

You have a proven track record of working across multiple countries and influencing senior stakeholders effectively within a matrix organization.

You are skilled at translating clinical evidence and regional insights into clear strategic recommendations, with sound judgment on scientific integrity and medical governance.

You build strong cross functional partnerships, including constructive collaboration with Commercial peers, while maintaining Medical's scientific independence.

You communicate complex scientific content with clarity and confidence, adapting your approach for diverse audiences from country medical teams to global leadership.

You are comfortable operating with a high degree of autonomy, managing competing priorities, and making well reasoned decisions in ambiguous situations.

What we offer: We are curious minds that come from a broad range of backgrounds, perspectives, and life experiences. We believe that this variety drives excellence and innovation, strengthening our ability to lead in science and technology. We are committed to creating access and opportunities for all to develop and grow at your own pace. Join us in building a culture of inclusion and belonging that impacts millions and empowers everyone to work their magic and champion human progress!

Apply now and become a part of a team that is dedicated to Sparking Discovery and Elevating Humanity!

Job details

Seniority
Director
Function
Medical Affairs
Therapeutic area
Oncology
Location
Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Medical Affairs role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 289 comparable Director Medical Affairs roles across 59 biopharma companies.

289Comparable roles tracked
279Currently active
59Companies hiring similar roles
27Countries represented

Salary context

137 of 289 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.

This roleSubject Not listed on this posting
Lowest disclosed · Principal Strategic Medical Writer · AbbVie $109,500/yr – $208,500/yr
Peer group range $159,000 – $392,100 (median $264,000)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 289 comparable roles

United States211
United Kingdom22
China8
Canada6
Germany5
France4

+ 21 more countries

Seniority mix

289 of 289 peers have a known seniority level

Director240
Senior Director32
Principal17

Therapeutic area mix

128 of 289 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology52
Neuroscience17
Respiratory14
Immunology13
Dermatology & Aesthetics10
Cardiovascular / CVRM7
Vaccines & Infectious Disease5
Rare Disease5
Gastroenterology4
Ophthalmology1

Similar opportunities

The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.

85%similar
Roche Shanghai, Shanghai, China's Mainland Director
Same function Same therapeutic area Same seniority
85%similar
Roche Shanghai, Shanghai, China's Mainland Director
Same function Same therapeutic area Same seniority
85%similar
AbbVie Director
Same function Same therapeutic area Same seniority

Open in 3 locations

Mettawa, United StatesFlorham Park, United StatesSan Francisco, United States
85%similar
AbbVie Director
Same function Same therapeutic area Same seniority

Open in 3 locations

Mettawa, United StatesSan Francisco, United StatesFlorham Park, United States
85%similar
AbbVie Florham Park, NJ Director
Same function Same therapeutic area Same seniority

Notify me about similar jobs

Get an email when we spot other openings like this one – same job function, comparable seniority, roles you'd actually want to see.

How we calculate "similar"

No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.

Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.

85%
Early Development Lead Medical Director, Non-oncology
Roche · Shanghai, Shanghai, China's Mainland · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
85%
Scientific Director / Senior Medical Director, Multiple Myeloma (International Medical Affairs)
AbbVie · Florham Park, NJ · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
85%
Scientific Director / Senior Medical Director, Medical Affairs - Global Oncology Pipeline (Prostate Cancer)
AbbVie · San Francisco, CA · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
85%
Medical Director- Early Development Oncology
AbbVie · Florham Park, NJ · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
Unmatched or unknown dimensions score exactly the same: 0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.