At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve. This is hard, urgent, selfless work—but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us. 

About the Role

The Thought Leader Liaison (TLL), Retina is a field-based commercial strategist and trusted advisor who embeds the voice of retina specialists and thought leaders into Lilly's commercial decisions for the retina portfolio — beginning with wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) and extending to additional retina assets as the pipeline matures. The TLL translates external expert and market perspective into strategic direction across brand planning, launch readiness, and access strategy. This role sits within the Commercial Lilly Regenerative Medicine organization.

Core Competencies

• Shape Strategy — Integrate thought leader and market perspectives into commercial strategy, influencing brand planning, launch readiness, and long-term franchise direction.

• Build Partnerships — Cultivate trusted, long-term relationships within the retina community across academic and community settings in the US and Globally.

• Translate Insights — Create exceptional insight generation with the ability to uncover unmet needs, practice challenges, competitive perceptions and evolving physician attitudes then taking those insights and developing actionable commercial intelligence for brand and access strategy.

• Navigate Access & Practice Dynamics — Surface healthcare system, site-of-care, and payer-policy factors shaping practice decision-making and patient access.

• Safeguard Credibility — Uphold scientific rigor, compliance, and ethical standards in all external engagement.

Responsibilities

KOL Relationship Management & Insight Generation

• Build and maintain relationships with emerging and existing KOLs to support insights generation on topics relevant to commercial strategy, including but not limited to healthcare system dynamics and payer policies impacting practice decision making and patient access.

• Conduct regular field-based engagements to gather practice-level, competitive, and market-access insights to understand their priorities and role(s) within the broader retina community, and then develop individualized engagement plans. Synthesize insights into structured input for brand and franchise business planning.

Commercial Strategy & Market Shaping

• Partner with the LRM commercial team to translate KOL and market insight into strategy, messaging, and launch planning.

• Track and report on evolving site-of-care, reimbursement, and payer-policy dynamics affecting retina practice patterns.

• Support pre-launch and launch readiness for wet AMD and, in the future, for pipeline retina assets.

Congress & External Landscape

• Represent Lilly at priority retina congresses and conferences; coordinate a cross-functional approach to deliver a post-meeting synthesis of the competitive and scientific landscape.

• Maintain a current view of current and emerging retina thought leaders and evolving standards of care, e.g., by attending podium presentations, scientific sessions, and external forums to understand emerging data, competitive developments, and evolving physician perspectives to inform commercial strategy.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Compliance

• Partner cross-functionally with Medical, Market Access, Marketing, Corporate Affairs, Operations and Compliance to ensure aligned, compliant engagement.

• Complete required training; adhere to all compliance, legal, and regulatory guidelines governing commercial-KOL interactions.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree

• 5+ years of ophthalmology or retina experience with specific experience in commercial, marketing, or sales strongly preferred.

• Valid driver's license and acceptable driving record.

• Ability to travel approximately 50%.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree (MBA, MPH, or related).

• Prior TLL, marketing, or launch experience in retina/ophthalmology or another specialty market.

• Established relationships with deep retina/ophthalmology expertise and credibility with a strong understanding of the disease state, treatment landscape, emerging science, clinical data and evolving standard of care.

• Solid understanding of the US payer and reimbursement landscape for retina therapies (e.g., site-of-care, buy-and-bill dynamics).

• Strong communication, influence, and cross-functional collaboration skills

Additional Information

• Travel: Est. 30–50%

• Based near a major airport

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form (https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

Lilly is proud to be an EEO Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia (AMECA), Black Employees at Lilly (BE@Lilly), Chinese Culture Network (CCN), EnAble, Evolve, Lilly Indian Network (LIN), Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), Pride (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN) and Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL).

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location.  The anticipated wage for this position is

Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

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