Interested in healthcare-focused consulting firms

Hi everyone, I'm a junior interested in life sciences/healthcare consulting.

I would appreciate advice/information on (1) which generalist firms are particularly strong in life sciences/healthcare. (2) what a career out of a life sciences/healthcare consulting firm could look like.

Thank you!

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Healthcare consulting is a niche and strange sector. You have boutiques like ClearView, Health Advances and Putnam as well as large players like CRA, IQVIA, ZS Associates and so on. Generalist firms such as MBBs or T2s (except LEK which is HC-focused) do have HC teams but tend to isolate them (meaning no cross-practice staffing) or you get exposure to typical strategy projects applied to the sector. What you won't get at T2s or MBBs is the type of work that CRA, ZS Associates and IQVIA mainly do; things like commercial strategy, pricing and market access, launch readiness or life cycle management. This is because the people concerned with these things are lower down than the c-suite (e.g. you would deal with the head of market access), but I think the work is much more interesting. You can end up on some company-wide transformation projects with smaller firms or M&A due diligence, but that won't be the typical work

Exit opps are predominantly industry-focused but can include going to other consulting firms, PE, IB or HFs. Depends on what experience you accumulated and what you want to do. If you want to chat more, PM me and I can give you a detailed breakdown of the industry, the players and the day to day.

 

Would challenge this only insofar as the project mix. MBB does plenty of the work that you'd listed, but the percentages will be different.

There are very few reasons to steer away from an MBB offer in favor of the life science firms. Generalist firms will each have their life science / healthcare tribe and for MBB it is a very flexible model. No need to specialize as an entry-level.

 

Do top boutiques/life science specialist firms also vary in project mix, or each have their area of expertise? If someone was looking to specialize in Life Sciences out of undergrad, but unsure about M&A work or late-stage product management, would you advise joining an MBB or a top life science player?

 

They do some, but are not well known in the field for it. In the same way that PwC does some pricing (we've seen some of their pricing work when re-doing it for a client). It's just not their bread and butter and will not be hiring time and time again for that work. This doesn't mean they aren't useful in the chain of events. I've seen examples of projects that go like this:

  • Non-MBBs do the pricing work for a new drug
  • The same or a different non-MBB does the launch planning
  • MBB helps them reshape or resize MSLs or SR salesforces in anticipation for the launch
 

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