You'll find that people with unusual perspectives tend to thrive at Johnson & Johnson. From physician-scientists like Dr. Lamousé-Smith to photographer-engineers like Dana Underwood, "hybrids" of all kinds feel at home here.
Count Dominik Naessens, Director of Global Market Access in Immunology, among them. With his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences and his MBA in business, Dominik tends to see intersectionality and connections where others might just see gaps.
Learn how Dominik leverages his hybrid skill set to get essential treatment options to the patients who need them—and how you, too, can spearhead positive, real-world impact with a career in Market Access at Johnson & Johnson.
"I'm Here to Improve Quality of Life"
In practice, Dominik's twofold expertise can make for a kind of moment-to-moment code-switching.
As he explained it, "Say I'm interacting with one of our R&D teams. In that case, I'll really need to be thinking in terms of my Ph.D. training. But then later, I'll also need to think through the key drivers that are impacting the decision, so my MBA training kicks in."
Within the Market Access Global Team at Janssen, Dominik specializes in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), an umbrella term for disorders like ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease that involve chronic inflammation of the digestive tract.
"These are areas with a lot of unmet patient needs," Dominik explained.
These disorders are also far more common than many people realize: UC, for example, a chronic and progressive immune-mediated inflammatory disease of the large intestine, is estimated to affect more than 750,000 people in North America alone.
For Dominik, that translates to a clear mandate. "Patients with these disorders often require frequent hospitalizations," he said, "so my work within the Market Access organization has a pretty straightforward goal: I'm here to improve the quality of life for patients."
"Diversity Is Richness"
It's work that sends Dominik pinballing in every direction, into every imaginable function, department and field at Johnson & Johnson—from clinical researchers to statisticians, regulatory experts, the occasional bench scientist and hundreds of others. And that's what he likes best.
I get energized by working with people from diverse backgrounds, people who come from different places and have had different experiences in life.
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He elaborated that, in the course of working collaboratively, "everyone feels, intuits, appreciates and sees things differently, so we're able to find different visions for solving problems—and I don't think that's necessarily true in the same way at smaller companies. We have people working together from around the globe at Johnson & Johnson. That level of diversity is richness."
What harmonizes that diversity, like a skillful conductor collecting a panoply of voices into a unified whole, are the values laid out in Our Credo at Johnson & Johnson.
"We're so diverse," he said, "but also all have this common compass in Our Credo. That makes collaborating easier, because we all know what we're trying to do and what it is that we're trying to achieve."
"Without Boundaries or Silos"
We've made a lot of headway in how we treat IBD so far, but Dominik believes we can do more. He's particularly excited about a number of new products in the pipeline right now at Johnson & Johnson, which are a testament to our deeply rooted commitment to R&D and drug discovery.
It's a commitment you can see reflected in the more than $10 million we invest in R&D efforts each year. And while translating that investment into new treatments that are available to patients may be a lengthy process, Market Access professionals like Dominik play an instrumental part every step of the way.
"I think scientists, economists, statisticians, pharmacists—people with or without business backgrounds—should investigate a career in market access," Dominik said. "This field comes with such unusual breadth. There isn't one profile for a successful market access career, so it's a very exciting space, and I think especially so at Johnson & Johnson because we approach it without boundaries or silos."
Join Us to Make Impact Today
We're on the cusp of breakthrough discoveries that have the potential to transform and improve the lives of patients around the world. That means there's tremendous opportunity for impact, but we need people with rare skill sets, like Dominik's, and diverse perspectives, like your own, to do it.
Ready to see your next brilliant idea brought to life as our next big health breakthrough? Check out all of the openings we have in Market Access as well as all of the ways you can join the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies right now. Plus, if you want to stay in touch—and get updates about jobs that might interest you as they become available—be sure to join our Global Talent Hub.