Senior Technical Advisor, Vaccine Demand Modelling

Overview:

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems.

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work in conjunction with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skillsets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with majority of our staff based in program countries. Learn more about our exciting work: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.

Overview of CHAI’s Vaccines Program

To ensure all children have access to effective and affordable immunization, addressing the main causes of child mortality, CHAI’s Vaccines Markets Team works with vaccine manufacturers, the Gavi Alliance and other global stakeholders to improve availability, affordability and diversity of supply for existing and future Gavi vaccines. In doing this, CHAI is applying the techniques it has used successfully to improve access to HIV/AIDS and malaria treatment: improving market demand transparency for individual suppliers and working closely with these suppliers to optimize their commercial, costing and pricing strategies in low- and middle-income markets. In doing so, this ensures the availability of vaccines at affordable yet commercially sustainable prices. http://www.who.int/pmnch/media/news/2013/gavi_pentavalent_price_announcement.pdf

The pandemic context has only reinforced the importance of CHAI’s Vaccines Markets team’s work.

Context on Novel TB Vaccine and CHAI’s Project Plan

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the world's most pressing health challenges, responsible for more deaths annually than HIV/AIDS, with 10 million new cases and 1.3 million deaths in 2022. The disease is particularly prevalent in high-burden, middle-income countries, with 70% of global TB cases concentrated across nine countries. Despite progress in diagnosis and treatment post-COVID-19, the END TB Strategy has fallen short in preventive treatment. The current TB vaccine for infants, BCG, offers insufficient protection, particularly against pulmonary TB in adolescents and adults. This gap in protection highlights the urgent need for new TB vaccines.

Sixteen novel TB vaccine candidates are currently in clinical trials, with six in Phase III trials. These vaccines hold transformative potential for reducing TB morbidity and mortality. By 2050, an infant vaccine could prevent 5.8–18.8 million cases, while an adolescent and adult vaccine could prevent 37.2–76 million cases. Accurate demand forecasting, which factors in product characteristics, financing, and manufacturing considerations, is essential to ensuring access to vaccines in high-burden countries where it is needed the most. CHAI’s multi-year TB vaccine program seeks to establish clear pathways for TB vaccine access in priority countries, focusing on demand mapping, stakeholder engagement, demand forecasting, and supply alignment. Drawing lessons from previous efforts like the malaria vaccine rollout, CHAI aims to support the acceleration of TB vaccine access to work towards meeting global eradication goals.

We are looking for a highly motivated individual with outstanding conceptual, analytical, modelling and communication skills. The successful candidate will adhere to the core CHAI values of resourcefulness, entrepreneurialism, flexibility, independence, humility, and work ethic. 

The Senior Technical Advisor will report to the Associate Director, Vaccine Markets. Responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:

• As Senior Technical Advisor, you will play a pivotal role in achieving a clear understanding of demand dynamics for novel TB vaccines and developing a demand forecasting. The role will encompass strategic, technical, and operationalizing the development of both product-agnostic and product-specific demand forecasts. Key areas of responsibility include:
• Demand Dynamics Analysis
• Support the hypotheses generation around key factors that will influence the introduction year, target scale, and ramp-up of novel TB vaccines in priority countries.
• Lead on designing the interview guide for expert interviews and primary data collection methods to validate assumptions on timing & scale of implementation and identify product preferences that will impact demand.
  Guide secondary research on global and country-specific factors influencing vaccine introduction and uptake to build scenarios.
• Demand Forecast Development
• Lead the creation of product-agnostic demand forecasts based on demographic and epidemiological factors.
• Incorporate both secondary and primary data, ensuring the forecast reflects country-specific realities and is robust enough for planning purposes.
• Develop scenario modeling tools to project vaccine demand under varying conditions and product characteristics.
• Develop forecasts for specific TB vaccines in Phase III trials, perform market share analysis to inform manufacturers and other stakeholders of potential demand based on vaccine characteristics and projected rollouts.
• Stakeholder Engagement and Validation
• Coordinate validation of forecasts with country stakeholders, key opinion leaders, and global partners such as Gavi and GFTAM to ensure forecasts are aligned with on-the-ground realities.
• Support project team to present findings to a set of key global, regional and country stakeholders as well as manufacturers as needed.

Technical skills

• Master’s or PhD in epidemiology, economics, biostatistics, or a related field with significant focus on quantitative modelling (e.g., epidemiology and public/global health, economics, biology, engineering).
• Minimum of 10 years of relevant work experience in a field requiring analytical problem-solving.
• Excellent command of study design approaches, data collection tools and quantitative modelling and impact evaluations.
• Excellent skills in quantitative modeling, data cleaning & management, and statistical analysis, including the use of statistical software such as Stata, SAS, or R.
• Experience with qualitative methodologies as part of mixed-methods research, design of data collection tools like key informant interviews or focus group discussion guides, thematic coding and analysis, and qualitative results interpretation and triangulation.
• Project management
• Proven project management skills and the ability to work independently and effectively in a fast-paced environment, including the development and execution of work plans with limited guidance and oversight, and handling multiple priorities simultaneously.
  Willingness to proactively seek out knowledge and interest in developing innovative solutions rather than accepting existing strategies or statements at face-value.
  Stakeholder management and communication
• Demonstrated ability to distill complex concepts into clear and actionable recommendations and to tailor communication to a range of audiences including Ministries of Health, global donors & partners, policy makers and vaccine manufacturers.
• Demonstrated ability to build strong relationships with individuals of varying levels of seniority.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, and a demonstrated ability to manage challenging multi-cultural, multi-stakeholder situations to achieve intended results.

Other

• High level of proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
• English language fluency, both written and verbal.
• Available for up to 20% travel to focus countries.

Advantages

• Experience working remotely with a decentralized team
• Experience working in or supporting low- and middle-income countries in Asia and Africa
• Familiarity with or experience with the global health / vaccine ecosystem
• Fluency in other languages is a plus