Location: Hybrid Role – based in Princeton, NJ or Frederick, MD
Reports to: Head of Commercial
About Cartesian Therapeutics:
Cartesian Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing mRNA CAR-T therapies for autoimmune diseases. Our mission is to expand the reach of cell therapy to patients living with serious autoimmune conditions through scientific rigor, collaboration, and innovation.
About the Role:
As we look ahead to the upcoming completion of our Ph3 Generalized Myasthenia Gravis trial, along with the continued progression of our trials in Myositis and Juvenile Dermatomyositis, Cartesian is further building-out our Commercial Organization.
Thus, we are seeking a Head of Marketing, which will report to the Head of Commercial and serve as a key member of the Commercial leadership team. This role will lead the development and implementation of an integrated brand and commercialization strategy across the portfolio to support successful launches and lifecycle management, ensuring clear differentiation, compelling positioning, and strong market adoption.
Key Responsibilities:
- Brand Strategy: Develop and lead an integrated brand strategy across the portfolio, including positioning, segmentation, targeting, promotion, and lifecycle planning, to drive differentiation, adoption, and long-term value
- P&L Leadership: Lead end-to-end brand performance, with accountability for revenue delivery, forecast alignment, operating expenses, and achievement of commercial and financial objectives
- Pre-Launch Market Shaping: Lead the market development strategy including messaging platform, disease state education (DSE), patient identification, account profiling, site of care, and site activation; and compliantly implement market-shaping initiatives to prepare stakeholders for adoption of novel CAR-T therapies
- Launch Leadership & Orchestration: Serve as the Descartes-08 launch lead, driving end-to-end launch readiness and execution across key functions to ensure aligned high-impact go-to-market delivery
- External Ecosystem & Thought Leader Engagement: Lead strategy and prioritization of external engagement across key opinion leaders (KOLs), patient advocacy organizations, centers of excellence, and broader stakeholder ecosystem as appropriate; drive coordinated, high-impact engagement in partnership with Medical Affairs to support awareness, credibility, and adoption
- Customer Engagement Strategy (HCP & Patient): Define and execute integrated, omnichannel engagement strategies across key stakeholders (HCPs, patients, caregivers), delivering impactful and compliant promotional and educational initiatives to drive awareness, adoption, retention, and expansion
- Patient Ambassador Program: Lead patient ambassador program(s) to amplify the patient voice, deepen community engagement, and support disease education and awareness
- Positioning, Messaging & Content Strategy: Define and deliver differentiated brand positioning supported by clinical and real-world evidence; lead development of core messaging, promotional materials, and content strategy; ensure alignment with market access and medical narratives
- Market Insights: Collaborate with Operations to ensure strong lead generation and integration of market research, customer insights, and competitive intelligence to inform strategy, decision-making, and continuous improvement on evolving market dynamics & key performance indicators
- Data-Driven Performance & Omnichannel Excellence: Partner with operations to ensure strong lead generation and integration of market research, customer insights, and competitive intelligence to inform strategy and decision-making, and to establish KPIs, measurement frameworks, and analytics to track performance and enable continuous improvement
- Field Strategy & Enablement: Partner with sales and market access to define field strategy, including segmentation, targeting, sizing, and deployment; partner with operations to ensure field teams are equipped with best-in-class tools, training, and insights to drive execution and performance
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with commercial peers, along with medical affairs, finance, regulatory, legal/compliance, manufacturing, and supply chain, to ensure aligned and integrated execution of commercialization strategies across the product lifecycle
- Team Development & Leadership: Recruit, develop, and lead a high-performing, agile, lean marketing team as launch approaches; foster a collaborative, accountable, and patient-centric culture aligned with company values
Qualifications:
- BioPharma Experience: 15+ years of progressive BioPharma marketing and commercial leadership experience, including HCP and Consumer marketing across all channels, with demonstrated success operating at the executive level within a Biotech initiating a first commercial launch
- Leadership Profile: Purpose-driven leader that values and role-models innovation, collaboration, integrity, and patient-centric thinking. Proven "player-coach" with the agility & humility to operate seamlessly between strategy and execution; known for building and leading high-performing teams and driving impact in resource-constrained, fast-paced, high-science environments
- Marketing Expertise: Deep expertise in brand strategy, customer segmentation, omnichannel engagement, market development, field deployment, and launch excellence, with strong understanding of compliant promotional practices, disease state education, and regulatory considerations
- Therapeutic Experience: Experience within cell and/or gene therapy, rare disease, neurology, rheumatology, and/or hematology/oncology strongly preferred, including successful launch of novel or first-in-class therapies
- Strategic & Analytical Excellence: Strong ability to translate clinical and real-world data into compelling brand narratives and engagement strategies; experience leveraging data, analytics, and insights to inform decision-making and drive commercial performance
- Collaboration & Influence: Exceptional communication, executive presence, and stakeholder influence skills, with a highly collaborative, cross-functional mindset
- Education: Advanced degree (MBA or equivalent) preferred; relevant work experience will be considered
Travel Expectations: ~20–40% travel