Rare Disease Specialist Lead (Strategic Accounts)

Join us as a Rare Disease Specialist Lead (Strategic Accounts)!

Your day-to-day as a Rare Disease Specialist Lead (Strategic Accounts)

Abeona Therapeutics is seeking a highly motivated and strategic Rare Disease Specialist Lead to manage a team of Rare Disease Specialists responsible for identifying, engaging, and developing referral networks that support patients living with Recessive Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa (RDEB).

Reporting to the National Director, Strategic Accounts, this remote, field-based leadership role is responsible for driving performance across the strategic account organization while ensuring alignment between patient identification, referral generation, and treatment center success.

Rare Disease Specialist Lead will lead and develop a team of Rare Disease Specialists focused on expanding disease awareness, strengthening referral pathways, and facilitating appropriate patient referrals to Qualified Treatment Centers (QTCs). In addition, the Specialist Lead will maintain direct responsibility for a portfolio of assigned QTCs, serving as the executive commercial lead responsible for fostering strong institutional partnerships, supporting patient pull-through, optimizing account performance, and addressing barriers to treatment access.

This individual will partner closely with Commercial, Medical Affairs, Patient Services, Advocacy, Market Access, and Operations to ensure a seamless patient journey from identification through treatment while driving strategic account excellence across the organization.

Schedule

The general working hours for this remote role are Monday to from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (start and end times may vary) (with some late night or weekend work on occasion).

Does this sound like you?

To thrive as a Rare Disease Specialist Lead, the right combination of experience, education, skills, and attitude is essential.

You've spent 10+ years in biotech, pharma, or specialty therapeutics, and some of your proudest moments come from helping your team grow and succeed. Rare disease or gene therapy experience? Even better. You love building genuine partnerships with treatment centers and seeing those relationships make a real difference for patients. You enjoy teaming up across functions to solve problems together, and you're excited to spend time on the road (about 50-70%) because you know every connection brings hope to people living with RDEB. If putting patients first is what drives you, we'd love to meet you!

Essential Responsibilities and Duties

Leadership and Team Development

• Recruit, coach, develop, and lead a high-performing team of Rare Disease Specialists.
• Establish clear performance objectives, accountability measures, and development plans aligned with organizational goals.

Education and Stakeholder Engagement

• Deliver compelling and compliant educational presentations tailored to the needs of healthcare professionals and institutional stakeholders.
• Identify opportunities for regional advisory boards, speaker programs, and educational initiatives that support disease awareness and patient identification.
• Facilitate collaboration among key stakeholders to enhance understanding of RDEB, patient identification, and referral pathways.
• Build and maintain relationships with key opinion leaders and influential stakeholders within the EB community.
• Support local and regional educational initiatives that align with Abeona's commercial strategy.

Conference Planning and Management

• Support Abeona's presence at key medical, scientific, and industry conferences, including national and regional meetings.
• Partner with Medical Affairs, Commercial, Marketing, and Corporate Communications to develop congress objectives and stakeholder engagement plans.
• Identify opportunities for internal subject matter experts and external thought leaders to participate in speaking engagements and educational programs.
• Coordinate customer engagement activities associated with conference participation.
• Represent Abeona at relevant industry, advocacy, and scientific meetings as appropriate.
• Conduct regular field coaching, business reviews, and performance assessments to drive individual and team excellence.
• Partner with Commercial Leadership to translate national strategies into actionable field execution plans.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, compliance, and customer focus.
• Support onboarding, training, and ongoing professional development activities for new and existing team members.
• Provide field insights, customer feedback, competitive intelligence, and market dynamics to inform strategic decision-making.
• Drive consistent execution of account planning, stakeholder engagement, referral development, and business planning processes across the team.

Strategic Account Leadership and Treatment Center Excellence

• Serve as the commercial lead for assigned Qualified Treatment Centers (QTCs), maintaining responsibility for treatment center success, patient pull-through, stakeholder engagement, and long-term partnership development.
• Develop and execute strategic account plans designed to optimize treatment center performance, patient progression, and overall account success.
• Build and maintain executive-level relationships with physicians, nursing leadership, care coordinators, administrators, and operational stakeholders within assigned QTCs.
• Partner closely with Patient Services, Medical Affairs, Market Access, and Operations to identify and resolve barriers impacting patient progression from referral through treatment.
• Monitor referral activity, patient progression, treatment conversion, and account performance metrics to identify opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Lead strategic business reviews with QTC leadership and internal stakeholders to align on objectives, performance expectations, and growth opportunities.
• Ensure effective coordination between field referral generation activities and treatment center capacity, readiness, and patient management processes.
• Identify and share best practices across treatment centers to improve patient experience, account performance, and operational effectiveness.
• Provide strategic recommendations to Commercial Leadership based on treatment center performance trends, customer feedback, and evolving market dynamics.
• Ability to travel approximately 50-70%, including customer meetings, field coaching, treatment center visits, and national conferences.

Required Qualifications

The background, knowledge, and skills required to be successful in the role are:

• Bachelor's degree in Life Sciences, Healthcare, Business, or a related field required; advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum of 10 years of experience within biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, rare disease, specialty therapeutics, or related healthcare sectors.
• Minimum of 5 years of field leadership experience with direct people management responsibility.
• Demonstrated success leading high-performing field-based teams in rare disease, specialty therapeutics, gene therapy, oncology, or other complex healthcare environments.
• Proven experience in strategic account management, treatment center engagement, Centers of Excellence, or complex healthcare ecosystem leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to influence and engage a broad range of stakeholders, including physicians, clinical staff, administrators, and executive leadership.
• Strong coaching, talent development, and organizational leadership capabilities.
• Exceptional presentation, communication, and relationship-building skills.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and execute strategic business plans within complex healthcare environments.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives across Commercial, Medical Affairs, Market Access, Patient Services, Advocacy, and Operations.
• Strong analytical, business planning, and problem-solving skills.
• Working knowledge of applicable legal, regulatory, and compliance requirements governing pharmaceutical customer engagement.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Life Sciences, Healthcare, Business, or related field
• Rare disease experience strongly preferred; dermatology, genetic disease, or gene therapy experience highly desirable.

Compensation and Benefits

• The anticipated base salary range for this position is $195,000 - $215,000 (Actual compensation will depend on experience, qualifications, and work location)
• Annual discretionary bonus
• Equity opportunities
• Robust health coverage options
• FSA/HSA options
• Company-paid basic dental and vision plans
• Lifestyle spending account (wellness reimbursements)
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Up to 160 hours of paid time off accrual per calendar year (prorated based on date of hire)

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to experience prolonged sitting, some bending, stooping, and stretching. Hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity sufficient to operate a keyboard, photocopier, telephone, calculator, and other office equipment is required. A normal range of hearing and vision correctable to 20/20 is required.

Important Notes for Candidates:

Visa Sponsorship Not Currently Available

• Applicants must be authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.
• This is a career-path role that is not suitable for someone whose work authorization is temporary and based on optional practical training (OPT).
• Current or future H-1B sponsorship is not available for this role.

Additional Notes to Applicants:

• Due to the volume of applications received, we are unable to respond to every applicant. Only candidates whose qualifications most closely match the requirements of the position and who successfully complete the initial stages of the selection process will be contacted.
• All applications will be reviewed in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local employment laws.

Connect with our team today!

If you're ready to take your career to the next level and join a team that values hard work and changing lives - complete our application today!