About this opportunity
Working at Abbott
At Abbott, you can do work that matters, grow and learn, care for yourself and your family, be your true self, and live a full life. You'll also have access to:
Career development with a global healthcare leader.
Opportunities to work across diverse therapeutic areas and markets.
A collaborative and inclusive culture focused on innovation and patient outcomes.
A company recognized as one of the world's most admired companies and best places to work.
The Opportunity
This position is based in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia within Abbott's Established Pharmaceuticals Division (EPD). EPD is committed to bringing trusted, high-quality branded generic medicines to patients across multiple therapeutic areas.
As the Head of Medical Affairs, you will lead the Medical Affairs function for Malaysia and Brunei, providing strategic and scientific leadership across Medical Affairs, Clinical Research, Medical Information, and Medical Governance activities. You will be a key member of the affiliate leadership team, partnering closely with internal and external stakeholders to drive business success while ensuring the highest standards of compliance and patient focus.
What You'll Work On
Lead and execute the Medical Affairs strategy for Malaysia and Brunei.
Build strong relationships with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), healthcare professionals, academic institutions, and regulatory stakeholders.
Oversee medical governance, clinical research activities, and promotional material review processes.
Partner with Commercial, Regulatory, Market Access, Clinical Operations, and other cross-functional teams to support business objectives.
Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing Medical Affairs team while driving a culture of collaboration and continuous learning.
Required Qualifications
Medical Doctor (MD) or equivalent scientific qualification with relevant pharmaceutical industry experience.
Significant Medical Affairs leadership experience within the pharmaceutical industry.
Strong scientific, clinical, and business acumen.
Demonstrated people leadership and team development experience.
Excellent communication, stakeholder engagement, and influencing skills.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience across multiple therapeutic areas, including Primary Care, Specialty Care, Oncology, and OTC.
Proven ability to translate complex clinical data into practical medical strategies.
Strong track record of cross-functional collaboration and external stakeholder management.
Experience leading medical teams through business growth and organizational change.
Strategic thinker with the ability to balance long-term vision and operational execution.
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Medical Affairs role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 1353 comparable Medical Affairs roles across 167 biopharma companies.
Salary context
354 of 1353 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)
Peers share this role's job function. This posting doesn't list a seniority level, so peers aren't narrowed by seniority either -- the range below may span more levels than usual.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 1353 comparable roles
+ 56 more countries
Seniority mix
831 of 1353 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
467 of 1353 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
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.
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.
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.