Merck Posted November 13, 2026

Principal Scientist (Director) - Outcomes Research, Oncology Assets

Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America FULL_TIME
Notify me about similar jobs

Merck 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

Job Description

Role Summary

The Principal Scientist/Director, Value & Implementation (V&I) Outcomes Research, position resides in the V&I organization, which includes Global Medical and Scientific Affairs as well as Outcomes Research.

Under the guidance of a senior leader, this position supports value evidence outcomes research plans and real-world evidence activities for pipeline products to meet the value evidence needs of clinicians, payers, policymakers, health technology assessment (HTA)/reimbursement agencies and health systems globally.

Types of studies executed include prospective and retrospective observational studies to characterize disease burden and epidemiology, treatment patterns, health-care resource utilization and costs, physician and patient satisfaction surveys, clinical and patient- reported outcomes assessments, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and economic modelling. Key responsibilities also include development of American Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) dossiers for U.S. payers and Global Value Dossiers for use by local subsidiaries in their HTA submissions.

The incumbent is expected to contribute to product development and marketing strategies throughout the lifecycle to ensure that product value is defined and developed to achieve optimal market/patient access and reimbursement. The incumbent is expected to work cross-functionally with clinical development, medical affairs, biostatistics, market access, commercial, and country affiliates and may have direct interactions with HTA agencies, reimbursement decision makers, and national immunization technical advisory groups.

Responsibilities and Primary Activities:

Partners with Medical Affairs counterparts to develop, execute and deliver on the Value and Implementation (V&I) plan.

Helps achieve / sustain reimbursement and market access for the oncology program and indications under their responsibility.

Critically assesses drivers and barriers to reimbursement and market access, and provides input into clinical, regulatory, payer/access, marketing and evidence generation strategies and programs.

In collaboration with internal teams and external partners, designs studies; authors study protocols; and develops measurement questionnaires, case report forms, data analysis plans, final study reports, scientific presentations, and publications.

Responsible for study-related contracting, budgets, and vendor/partner management and ensures study conduct is aligned with company Policies and standard operating procedures (SOPs) and world-wide regulations and standards, including Good Pharmacoepidemiology Practice (GPP) for applicable work.

Develops American Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) dossiers for U.S. payers and Global Value Dossiers.

Develops supplementary clinical data package in close partnership with markets and HTA statistics group for submission to HTA agencies.

Supports country affiliates to understand local evidence generation needs, adapts health economic evaluations, and customizes outcomes research documents, such as protocols and reimbursement dossiers, according to local requirements.

Works closely with cross-functional teams to effectively communicate outcomes research and health economic modelling data internally and to external stakeholders.

Maintains awareness of new scientific and methodological developments within therapeutic area.

Builds relationships with scientific experts worldwide.

Presents outcomes research data at national and international congresses and publishes articles in scientific journals.

 

Required Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

Minimum:

Master’s degree in relevant discipline (health services research, outcomes research, epidemiology, public health, health economics, pharmacoeconomics, pharmacy administration).

8 or more years of experience post degree.

Experience/experience in the designated Therapeutic Area.

Preferred:

Doctoral degree (PhD, MD, DrPH, ScD, PharmD) in relevant discipline (health services research, outcomes research, epidemiology, public health, health economics, pharmacoeconomics, pharmacy administration).

6 or more years of experience post degree.

Experience with a product launch or indication launch.

Required Skills:

Cross-Functional Leadership, Epidemiology, Health Economics, Health Services, Medical Affairs, Oncology, Outcomes Research, Pharmaceutical Compliance, Pharmacoeconomics, Pharmacy Administration, Pharmacy Compliance, Public Health.

Required Skills:

Health Economic Modeling, Health Economics, Health Services Research, Health Technology Assessment (HTA), Observational Studies, Oncology, Outcomes Research, Product Development, Stakeholder Relationship Management, Strategic Planning

Preferred Skills:

Evidence Gathering, Product Rollouts, Real World Evidence (RWE), Scientific Presentations

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

Our company is committed to inclusion, ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please click here if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

As an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer, we provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.  As a federal contractor, we comply with all affirmative action requirements for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.  For more information about personal rights under the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment laws, visit:

EEOC Know Your Rights

EEOC GINA Supplement​

We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing together, talented, and committed people with diverse experiences, perspectives, skills and backgrounds. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when people with diverse ideas, broad experiences, backgrounds, and skills come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively.

Learn more about your rights, including under California, Colorado and other US State Acts

The primary location for this posting is:

USA - New Jersey - Rahway

Where required by law, the compensation range for this role is provided below.

The salary range for the primary location of this role is:

$190,800.00 - $300,300.00

This range reflects the Company's reasonable expectation of the base salary applicable to this role at the time of 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 https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits .

Additional location(s): Please note the salary range above applies to the Primary Location of the position. Where a role has other listed locations, different compensation guidelines may apply. You may find the salary ranges for additional locations below. If the salary range is not listed for the location you are applying to, our Talent Acquisition team will provide further information to you relevant to your location.

Additional location(s) Compensation Information:

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

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully 

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:

Domestic

VISA Sponsorship:

Yes

Travel Requirements:

10%

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:

No

Hazardous Material(s):

n/a

Job Posting End Date:

11/28/2026 *A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE  the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.

Requisition ID:R426752

Job details

Seniority
Director
Function
Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research
Therapeutic area
Oncology
Location
Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 231 comparable Director Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research roles across 43 biopharma companies.

231Comparable roles tracked
217Currently active
43Companies hiring similar roles
13Countries represented

Salary context

117 of 231 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
Peer group range $110,300 – $322,650 (median $205,000)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 231 comparable roles

United States179
China14
United Kingdom9
India6
Austria4
Switzerland4

+ 7 more countries

Seniority mix

231 of 231 peers have a known seniority level

Principal148
Director60
Senior Director23

Therapeutic area mix

41 of 231 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology17
Immunology14
Cardiovascular / CVRM6
Neuroscience3
Vaccines & Infectious Disease1

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.

100%similar
GlaxoSmithKline LLC Waltham, United States Director
Same function Same therapeutic area Same seniority Same country
100%similar
Amgen Inc. South San Francisco, United States Director
Same function Same therapeutic area Same seniority Same country
100%similar
Novartis Cambridge (USA), United States Director
Same function Same therapeutic area Same seniority Same country
100%similar
GlaxoSmithKline LLC Upper Providence, United States Director
Same function Same therapeutic area Same seniority Same country
100%similar
Merck North Wales, Pennsylvania, United States of America Director
Same function Same therapeutic area Same seniority Same country
90%similar
Celgene - Summit (Corp) Seattle 400 Dexter, United States Principal
Same function Same therapeutic area Adjacent seniority Same country

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.

Or follow a whole field: get every new Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research job in the United States, and choose locations and companies.

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.

100%
Director, AI/ML MIDD Oncology Clinical Pharmacology, Modeling and Simulation
GlaxoSmithKline LLC · Waltham, United States · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
100%
Director, Oncology Clinical Pharmacology Modeling & Simulation
GlaxoSmithKline LLC · Upper Providence, United States · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
90%
Senior Director, Oncology Pharmacology
Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc. · Home-Based, United States · Senior Director
Function Therapeutic area Adjacent seniority Country
90%
Senior Principal Scientist, Immuno-Oncology (Ridgefield, CT, United States, Connecticut)
Boehringer Ingelheim · Ridgefield, Connecticut, United States · Principal
Function Therapeutic area Adjacent 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.