Senior Director, Disease Area Lead (DAL), Internal Medicine

The Senior Director, Disease Area Lead (DAL), Internal Medicine is a senior individual contributor role within the Internal Medicine and Antivirals Early Commercial Business, part of the Global Commercial Strategy organization, reporting to the VP, GCS, IM/AV. This role has no current direct reports and will lead through senior matrix leadership. The role is responsible for shaping disease-area commercial strategy across priority Internal Medicine and Antivirals areas and serving as a senior commercial voice to R&D, Medical Affairs, Global Access Strategy & Pricing (GASP), Business Development, and US and International Commercial teams. 

The Internal Medicine and Antivirals portfolio represents significant strategic value to realizing Pfizer's vision to achieve leadership via breakthroughs in prioritized diseases and biological axes to generate highly differentiated, multi-indication mega-blockbusters. Today, the portfolio delivers more than $11B globally, with 4 ongoing clinical studies underway to expand our product portfolio over the next several years. 

This colleague will bring scientific depth, commercial judgment, and enterprise perspective to shape disease-area priorities, early development choices, product concepts, lifecycle implications, and differentiated commercial opportunities. The Senior Director will partner closely with R&D, Medical Affairs, GASP, Business Analytics & Insights, Competitive Intelligence, Business Development, and US and International Commercial teams to translate scientific, clinical, market, access, and competitive insights into clear disease-area recommendations and actionable strategic choices. 

This role requires an experienced commercial strategist who can operate across ambiguity, influence senior cross-functional stakeholders without direct authority, and shape high-performing cross-functional ways of working that strengthen disease-area strategy, early commercial input, and AI-enabled decision support in service of patient impact and enterprise value realization. 

Responsibilities: 

Disease Area Strategy and Long-Range Planning: 

• Lead development of long-range commercial disease-area strategy across priority Internal Medicine and Antivirals areas, spanning early pipeline assets, lifecycle opportunities, external innovation, and emerging disease-area opportunities. 

• Establish integrated near-, mid-, and long-term views of disease-area opportunities, risks, unmet needs, and development implications to inform strategic decision-making. 

• Synthesize scientific, clinical, commercial, access, competitive, and patient insights to identify disease-area priorities and strategic choices. 

• Monitor shifts in the scientific and competitive landscape to identify emerging trends, market discontinuities, and implications for future Internal Medicine strategy. 

• Translate disease-area strategy into clear recommendations, implications, and decision materials for leadership, governance forums, and cross-functional discussions. 

Commercial Input to Development and Lifecycle Strategy: 

• Provide senior commercial leadership for disease-area development choices, lifecycle opportunities, and early asset strategy across Internal Medicine and Antivirals priorities. 

• Pressure-test disease-area commercial assumptions, value drivers, risks, uncertainties, and evidence needs that may influence future launch potential, lifecycle value, and patient impact. 

• Lead development of executive-ready materials that communicate disease-area opportunity, strategic rationale, implications, and recommended actions. 

• Partner with cross-functional leaders to align on key choices related to clinical development, indication sequencing, evidence generation, market development, and lifecycle opportunities. 

• Support disciplined decision-making by ensuring disease-area recommendations are grounded in patient need, scientific opportunity, market potential, access dynamics, and enterprise value. 

Early Commercial Assessment and Product Concept Development: 

• Oversee early commercial assessments for pipeline assets, mechanisms, indications, disease-area opportunities, and potential future product concepts across Internal Medicine and Antivirals. 

• Guide development and refinement of product concepts, target product profile input, positioning hypotheses, market archetypes, commercial opportunity assessments, and forecast assumptions. 

• Ensure unmet need, standard of care, competitive dynamics, patient/HCP insights, and access considerations are translated into differentiated commercial hypotheses. 

• Provide commercial input to clinical development, evidence generation, lifecycle, and indication sequencing discussions in partnership with cross-functional colleagues. 

• Build repeatable approaches for high-quality disease-area strategy outputs across Internal Medicine and Antivirals workstreams. 

Business Development and External Innovation Support: 

• Provide disease-area commercial strategy input for external innovation and Business Development opportunities relevant to Internal Medicine and Antivirals. 

• Guide assessment of strategic fit, market potential, valuation inputs, competitive scenarios, and disease-area implications for potential external opportunities. 

• Partner with Business Development, R&D, GASP, BAI, and Competitive Intelligence colleagues to pressure-test assumptions and identify key decision points. 

• Represent the commercial disease-area perspective in internal discussions related to external opportunities and broader Internal Medicine and Antivirals strategy as needed. 

Cross-Functional Leadership and Governance: 

• Provide senior matrix leadership across cross-functional partners, helping align priorities, clarify decision points, and strengthen high-quality strategic outputs across Internal Medicine and Antivirals disease-area priorities. 

• Partner with the VP, GCS, IM/AV and cross-functional leaders to ensure a strong commercial voice is incorporated into disease-area, early development, lifecycle, and external innovation decisions. 

• Influence without direct authority by aligning stakeholders around shared insights, strategic choices, and implications for assigned disease-area priorities. 

• Build trusted working relationships across R&D, Medical Affairs, GASP, BAI, Competitive Intelligence, Business Development, and Commercial Regions. 

• Foster a culture of enterprise thinking, scientific curiosity, accountability, and collaboration across cross-functional workstreams. 

AI-Enabled Ways of Working: 

• Set expectations for responsible, AI-enabled ways of working across Internal Medicine and Antivirals disease-area strategy workstreams to improve speed, quality, consistency, and scalability of strategic outputs. 

• Champion use of AI-enabled tools to support scientific and competitive landscape synthesis, market insight generation, scenario development, and decision-support efficiency. 

• Help build cross-functional capability and confidence in compliant, AI-augmented strategy development through best-practice sharing and reinforcement of quality standards. 

• Identify opportunities to embed AI into repeatable workflows, templates, portfolio reviews, and strategic decision-support processes. 

• Use performance insights, stakeholder feedback, and workstream learnings to continuously improve AI-enabled ways of working across assigned disease areas. 

Here Is What You Need (Minimum Requirements)

• Applicant must have a bachelor's degree with at least 12 years of experience; OR a master's degree with at least 10  years of experience; OR a PhD with 7+ years of experience.

• Experience in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, life sciences, commercial development, portfolio strategy, corporate strategy, business development, forecasting, market research, analytics, or related field. 

• Demonstrated experience leading complex cross-functional teams, influencing in matrixed environments, and guiding colleagues through coaching, mentorship, or matrix leadership. 

• Strong strategic and analytical skills, with ability to synthesize complex scientific, clinical, market, access, and competitive information into clear recommendations. 

• Experience leading disease-area strategy, early commercial assessment, business case development, opportunity assessment, or cross-functional strategic planning. 

• Ability to engage in scientific and clinical dialogue and translate implications for commercial opportunity, differentiation, portfolio value, and enterprise decision-making. 

• Strong communication, executive presence, problem-solving, and stakeholder management skills. 

Bonus Points If You Have (Preferred Requirements)

• Experience in Internal Medicine, cardiometabolic disease, specialty care, primary care, or other complex therapeutic areas preferred. 

• Experience with commercial development, early asset strategy, disease-area strategy, Business Development assessments, launch strategy, or lifecycle strategy. 

• Demonstrated ability to develop long-term strategies for products or disease areas and secure alignment from senior leadership. 

• Understanding of market access dynamics, payer considerations, evidence generation, value demonstration, and lifecycle value optimization. 

• Track record of leading cross-functional teams, influencing without authority, and making recommendations with incomplete information. 

• Comfort working in an AI-enabled or AI-augmented environment; experience using AI tools to support strategy, synthesis, or analysis is a plus. 

• Ability to thrive in ambiguity, operate with enterprise mindset, and adapt to evolving portfolio priorities. 

• Discretion, sound judgment, and trustworthiness in handling confidential or sensitive organizational matters.