Santen is a specialized company with a proud 130-year heritage focused exclusively on eye health. As a Japan-originated, global company with our footprint in over 60 countries and regions, our mission is to provide essential and significant value to patients and society through our products and services created from our expertise in ophthalmology and from the patient’s perspective.

The Medical Director, FOTE EMEA oversees and contributes to a coordinated approach to expanding Santen’s medical leadership in FOTE for designated products and therapeutic areas, delivering strategic medical insights to cross-functional stakeholders. As a key scientific leader, this role helps shape medical strategy and supports the successful development and lifecycle management of innovative therapies that improve patient outcomes.

Depending on the product lifecycle stage, the Medical Director may participate in clinical research review or concept development, lead external advisory boards, provide scientifically rigorous review of pre- and post-marketing disease state and product-related materials, serve as a trusted scientific partner across the Santen organization, and lead or contribute to other activities of strategic and scientific importance.

This role has a regional EMEA scope that offers the opportunity to work across diverse healthcare systems and cultures, requiring strong collaboration, cultural awareness, and high scientific and technical expertise. The Medical Director will partner with stakeholders at all levels in a highly matrixed international environment, playing a key role in driving medical excellence and fostering cross-functional collaboration.

What you will do

• Serve as the scientific subject matter expert for multiple departments through scientific expertise and deep understanding of Santen and competitor data.
• Conduct data analyses, identifying data gaps in Santen data and in the literature and formulate plans to fill data gaps.
• Formulate appropriate study design for Phase IIIB, Phase IV and PIP studies.
• Understand the level of scientific expertise across multiple department and proactively provide audience-appropriate internal scientific education.
• Facilitate advisory boards, identifying needs for external input, selecting appropriate advisors, and ensuring external input reaches all appropriate Santen stakeholders.
• Provide scientific input to Phase II and Phase III study designs as requested.
• Support dossier development with scientific, editorial or other support as requested.
• Participate on regulatory filing teams as requested.
• Serve as scientific subject matter expert on external podium presentations as requested.
• Establish and maintain strong peer-to-peer relationships with key medical thought leaders in the fields of retina and cornea.
• Provide rigorous scientific review of medical and promotional materials.
• Generate audience-appropriate scientific and medical insights to cross-functional teams at various levels within Santen organization.
• Lead and facilitate  the development of  EMEA FOTE Therapy Area Strategy  team members, whilst stimulating a vivid collaboration and exchange between regional teams, as well as between regional EMEA  and country teams.

What you will bring to the role

• MD, PhD, PharmD or BSc required
• Minimum 12 years previous relevant industry experience
• Previous experience as part of a cross-functional, international team within ophthalmology field;
• Demonstrated ability to serve as scientific subject matter expert, including proactive data analysis and formulation of strategies to fill data gaps
• Expertise in satisfactory interpersonal relationships with others in the working environment, and in collaboration with physicians
• Strong presentation skills, and exemplary interpersonal communication skills, both oral and written
• History of communicating effectively to a variety of audiences
• Presented scientific data in conferences and supported the preparation of such presentations by investigators and Medical Thought Leaders
• Knowledge, understanding and adherence to global regulatory guidelines (e.g. EFPIA, FDA, PMDA, MHRA  etc.).
• Strong analytical, conceptual, administrative, and computer skills
• Ability to approach work with a strong domestic and international perspective
• Availability to travel 20-35%

Ready to make a difference?  

Apply today and help us shape the future of eye health. 

What we offer:

• Competitive Salary: A market‑aligned base salary starting from 133,415 GBP – 183,445 GBP, depending on experience and location.

Grow your career at Santen
A career at Santen is an opportunity to make a difference. We aspire to contribute to the realization of “Happiness with Vision” by providing eye health products and services to patients, consumers, and medical professionals around the world. Guided by our CORE PRINCIPLE, “Tenki ni sanyo suru”, Santen is engaged in the global research & development, manufacturing, and sales and marketing of pharmaceutical products in ophthalmology. We have team members around the world using their diverse talents to unlock new modalities and drive innovations for patient outcomes, education and treatment. At Santen, we believe in empowering all our team members with flexible ways of working and a highly inclusive work environment.

The Santen Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to building diverse teams and ensuring a safe and inclusive physical and virtual workplace for every one of our team members. All employment decisions are based on business needs, role requirements and individual qualifications regardless of race, color, ethnicity, national origin/ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/ expression, age, disability, medical condition, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

If you require any kind of accommodation during our recruitment process, please let the recruiter from our team know.