Summary:

We are seeking a Vice President of Marketing to lead our marketing strategy as we prepare to become a U.S. commercial vaccine company within the next 18 months. This role is critical to shaping our U.S. launch, building the marketing foundation for a first commercial product, and positioning the company for future global expansion.

The ideal candidate brings deep vaccine marketing experience, a strong understanding of the U.S. immunization landscape, and a proven track record of leading pre-launch and launch activities in a highly regulated environment. This leader will balance strategic vision with hands-on execution, building capabilities, teams, and processes appropriate for a first commercial launch. This individual should have demonstrated experience driving commercial demand across target audiences—including healthcare providers, consumers/patients, payers, and public health stakeholders—with a particular emphasis on consumer engagement strategies that build disease awareness and motivate vaccination behavior.

Essential Functions:

U.S. Launch & Commercial Strategy

• Lead the development and execution of the U.S. marketing strategy for our initial vaccine launch, including disease awareness, brand positioning, and go-to-market planning.
• Develop differentiated value propositions grounded in clinical data, public health impact, and real-world evidence.
• Partner closely with the Chief Commercial Officer to align marketing strategy with overall commercial, sales, and market access plans.

Vaccine & Immunization Expertise

• Apply deep understanding of the U.S. vaccine ecosystem, including immunization schedules, CDC/ACIP considerations, public health stakeholders, and provider types.
• Design marketing strategies that address the unique dynamics of vaccine adoption, including site-of-care complexity, and public trust.
• Collaborate with Medical Affairs and Regulatory to ensure compliant, scientifically sound communications.
• Partner with Government Affairs and Policy teams to ensure marketing strategies account for evolving immunization policy, public funding mechanisms, and advocacy stakeholder dynamics.
• Collaborate with HEOR and Market Access to develop evidence-based value narratives and payer-facing materials that support formulary positioning and access.

Brand & Portfolio Marketing

• Establish the company’s commercial brand and narrative as we transition from a development-stage biotech to a commercial organization.
• Lead brand development, messaging, and omnichannel promotional strategy across HCP, payer, and patient audiences.
• Design and execute integrated omnichannel engagement strategies spanning personal promotion, digital channels, and non-personal promotion to optimize customer reach, frequency, and impact across the vaccine adoption journey.
• Develop digital-first engagement models for hard-to-reach HCP segments, including pharmacists and public health practitioners critical in vaccine delivery.
• Develop and execute consumer/patient engagement strategies—including disease awareness campaigns, direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, and health literacy initiatives—that drive vaccination demand at the population level.
• Build multi-audience demand generation strategies that create a pull-through effect across HCPs, consumers, payers, employers, and public health decision-makers to maximize vaccine adoption.
• Partner with Patient Advocacy organizations and community health stakeholders to inform patient-centric messaging and overcome barriers to vaccination, including vaccine hesitancy and health equity gaps.
• Develop lifecycle and indication expansion strategies to support future growth and pipeline advancement.

Market Insights & Analytics

• Lead market research, customer insights, and competitive intelligence to inform launch readiness and ongoing optimization.
• Define KPIs and performance metrics to measure marketing effectiveness and launch success.
• Leverage data analytics and AI-powered tools to enhance competitive intelligence, identify prescriber behavior patterns, and inform real-time marketing optimization decisions.

Team, Infrastructure & Capability Building

• Build and lead a high-performing marketing organization, scaling the team and capabilities over time.
• Establish agency partnerships and external vendors to support launch execution. Build and manage a high-performing agency roster with clear scopes of work, performance metrics, and governance structures that drive accountability and cost efficiency.
• Implement marketing processes, governance, and operating models consistent with U.S. commercial and regulatory requirements.
• Implement marketing operations infrastructure including project management systems, digital asset management (DAM), and content supply chain processes designed for scale and speed-to-market.
• Own the marketing budget, ensuring disciplined resource allocation across brand, digital, and promotional investments with clear ROI measurement and launch investment frameworks.

Future Global Expansion

• Design U.S. marketing strategies with future global scalability in mind.
• Partner cross-functionally to support early planning for potential international expansion, including global brand frameworks and knowledge transfer.

Digital Innovation & AI-Enabled Marketing

• Champion the integration of AI and emerging technologies into marketing workflows to improve quality, speed, cost efficiency, and decision-making across the marketing organization.
• Evaluate and deploy AI-powered tools for content creation, personalization, competitive intelligence, and customer engagement—ensuring all applications comply with regulatory and MLR requirements.
• Leverage generative AI to accelerate content development cycles, enable omnichannel personalization at scale, and streamline the Medical-Legal-Regulatory (MLR) review process.
• Establish an AI-informed marketing operations model that uses predictive analytics to optimize targeting, message sequencing, and media mix allocation.
• Identify opportunities to use AI and automation to reduce agency costs, accelerate time-to-market for promotional materials, and improve ROI across marketing investments.
• Partner with IT, Data Science, and Commercial Operations to build a connected, data-driven marketing ecosystem from the ground up.

Requirements: 

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree (MBA, MS, PhD) preferred with 15+ years of progressive marketing experience in biotech or pharmaceuticals.
• Other combinations of education and/or experience may be considered
• Significant experience in vaccine marketing, including U.S. launch experience.
• Demonstrated success leading pre-launch and first-launch marketing efforts.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience building a marketing organization in a pre-commercial or first-launch biotech environment.
• Track record of leading omnichannel marketing strategies integrating digital, non-personal, and field-based promotion.
• Experience managing complex agency rosters and marketing vendor ecosystems across creative, media, digital, and analytics functions.
• Familiarity with AI/ML applications in marketing, including content generation, customer segmentation, predictive analytics, and campaign optimization.
• Demonstrated fluency in marketing analytics, including KPI frameworks, attribution modeling, and data-driven optimization.
• Experience with MLR processes and demonstrated ability to partner effectively with Medical and Legal/Regulatory in a compliant promotional environment.
• Strong executive presence with the ability to influence C-suite stakeholders and represent the marketing function on cross-functional leadership teams.
• Proven experience driving commercial demand generation across both HCP and consumer/patient audiences in a regulated healthcare environment, including DTC, disease education, or unbranded awareness campaigns.
• Public health marketing or disease awareness campaign experience preferred

Summary:

Vaxcyte is seeking a Senior Director, Launch Lead, VAX-31, to lead strategic planning and execution of the company’s first launch of VAX-31. This role will coordinate cross-functional activities from late-stage development through market entry, ensuring readiness across supply chain, regulatory, medical affairs, commercial operations, communications, and other functions. The position will partner with senior leadership to define launch strategies, manage timelines, mitigate risks, and drive alignment across internal and external stakeholders to deliver successful product introductions globally.

Essential Functions:

• Drive cross functional launch delivery of VAX-31 and oversee integrated launch plans.
• Ensure alignment with corporate objectives and market requirements.
• Develop and maintain comprehensive launch readiness frameworks, including working with supply chain, manufacturing scale-up, regulatory approvals, labelling, distribution, and commercial execution.
• Partner with Commercial, Medical Affairs, Regulatory, Quality, Manufacturing, Finance, Market Access, and Scientific Affairs teams to ensure seamless coordination and timely decision-making.
• Facilitate cross-functional launch meetings, track critical milestones, and proactively identify risks and contingency plans.
• Drive post-launch performance tracking and lessons learned to inform future launches.
• Champion best practices in pharmaceutical launch project management, including governance models, risk registers, and stakeholder engagement strategies.

Requirements: 

• BA/BS in life sciences, engineering, or business; advanced degree preferred.
• At least 15 years in pharmaceutical or biotechnology industry, with at least 5 years in launch related project management or product marketing/management; vaccine launch experience strongly preferred.
• Ensure adherence to project scope, budget, and schedule; ensure the alignment of the project to corporate strategic direction, resource allocation, and management decision-making.
• Facilitate team meetings, cross-functional communication, and decision-making; ensure alignment with internal and external stakeholders, program and project teams and functional area partners.
• Support continuous improvement efforts in Project Management practices at Vaxcyte.
• Proven track record of leading successful product launches in multiple markets. Expertise in cross-functional leadership, strategic planning, and risk management for complex launches.
• Strong understanding of regulatory pathways, supply chain logistics, and market access considerations.
• Thorough understanding of product development activities in biotech/drug/vaccine development, including key interdependencies, and knowledge of proven development strategies and tactics.
• Demonstrated strong organizational and strategic leadership skills.
• Demonstrated aptitude for successfully managing multiple projects, of varying complexity, within the specified guidelines, timeframes, and budgets.
• Self-starter with the ability to work independently, deal with ambiguity, and execute.
• Expert planning and tracking skills, well-organized, focused on results, capable of managing multiple projects with respect to priorities and self-management.
• Proven influence management and communication skills, at all levels of the organization.
• Expert knowledge of MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and Project.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Other combinations of education and/or experience may be considered.