Director/Senior Director, Trade and Distribution

Company Profile:

At Verastem Oncology, we address urgent needs of patients living with cancers driven by RAS/MAPK pathway mutations, a key driver of tumor growth and treatment resistance. FDA approval of AVMAPKI FAKZYNJA CO-PACK delivered the first therapy for women living with recurrent KRAS-mutated low-grade serous ovarian cancer, a rare cancer with significant unmet need. We’ve launched this novel/novel combination therapy in the U.S. and are exploring pathways for Europe and Japan. We continue to advance our pipeline of drugs to help block cancer cell survival, inhibit tumor growth, and overcome treatment resistance. This is an exciting opportunity to shape the future of cancer care and make a meaningful impact in the lives of patients. 

Summary:

Verastem Oncology is seeking a Director / Senior Director, Trade & Distribution, to design, implement, and execute the distribution strategy for its current and future products.  In this role, this individual will partner with 3rd party logistics, specialty pharmacies, specialty distributors, individual practices, hospitals, and other external customers while driving a cross-functional center of excellence on the commercial team.

This is a hands-on leadership role designed for an individual who has experience building and operating oncology product channels from the ground up, knows the specialty pharmacy, specialty distributor and medically integrated dispensing landscape, and can operate at both the strategic and transactional level.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the specialty pharmacy network relationships, including performance management, service level agreements, fee-for-service and data agreements, quarterly business reviews and audits.
• Manage specialty distributor relationships and support medically integrated dispensing and in-office dispensing accounts, including distribution service agreements and fees.
• Evaluate the inventory and fulfillment model and oversee the 3PL relationship.
• Monitor channel inventory, demand and dispensing trends; identify and resolve access, fulfillment or data issues quickly.
• Partner with Finance to support contracting, chargebacks and government price reporting, to ensure channel terms, class-of-trade and eligibility data flow correctly into those processes.

Operations, compliance and team

• Ensure DSCSA, licensing, product returns, recall readiness and trade compliance requirements are met across products.
• Ensure specialty pharmacy partners meet adverse event and product complaint reporting obligations.
• Manage the trade and distribution budget and vendor spend.
• Build and lead the Trade & Distribution team as launch approaches (e.g., trade operations and specialty pharmacy network roles).
• Serve as Verastem's channel subject matter expert for Commercial leadership, Brand, Sales, Patient Services, Medical Affairs and Commercial Analytics.

Qualifications:

Required

• Bachelor's degree; MBA or other advanced degree preferred.
• 12+ years of pharmaceutical or biotech experience (Senior Director) or 10+ years (Director), with at least 5 years in trade, distribution or specialty pharmacy channel management.
• Experience managing and working with oncology products .
• Demonstrated success supporting at least one U.S. product launch.
• Experience negotiating and executing agreements with specialty pharmacies, specialty distributors and 3PLs.
• Working knowledge of channel economics and pricing mechanics (WAC, AWP, distribution fees, chargebacks, GPO dynamics) and of 340B, Medicaid and government pricing implications for channel decisions.
• Familiarity with DSCSA, state licensing and trade compliance requirements.
• Experience with channel data (852/867, SP data feeds, data aggregators) and using it to manage partner performance.

Preferred

• Experience at a small or mid-size biotech building a channel function with limited resources.
• Relationships across the major specialty pharmacies, specialty distributors, oncology GPOs and medically integrated dispensing networks.
• Experience managing a 3PL and evaluating fulfillment models.
• Oral oncology and/or rare disease experience.
• Prior experience at a specialty pharmacy or specialty distributor.

Capabilities

• Operates comfortably at both strategy and transaction level; builds the plan and runs it.
• Negotiates firmly while preserving long-term partner relationships.
• Translates channel issues into clear, concise recommendations for senior leadership.
• Builds cross-functional alignment without direct authority.