Breaking into healthcare IB

First time posting on this forum.

Did my PhD in life sciences (from a school where many get offers from MBB for management consulting) and am currently a computational biologist/data scientist at a biotech startup in Boston. All throughout graduate school I was interested in management consulting and investment banking but this scientist role seemed a really good start to break into industry.

I want to stay at this company for about a year and then pivot to investment banking. What can I do between now and January or so to set up my CV so that it is competitive at a great bank (thinking mid tier - top tier) for an associate level role in healthcare/biotech/pharma investment banking (not interested in equity research)? I would like to start applying in January for positions so that I can begin sometime around August.

6 months seems like a decent amount of time to dedicate myself to developing some desirable credentials.

I'm not really interested in taking the level 1 CFA exam. It does not seem like an effective strategy. I can readily imagine the same amount of time that would be spent studying for that test could be better spent doing other things to better improve my chances of getting into IB.

Many thanks.

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