Blackstone Private Equity vs. Life Sciences: differences
I'm a physician at MBB interested in private equity. Have seen a few physician alumni at my company make the transition to "Blackstone Life Sciences" and "Bain Capital Life Sciences" as associate/principal.
Are those different from the traditional private equity positions (investing side, not operational) at Blackstone/Bain Capital that one can get post-MBB? How do the Life Sciences and "traditional PE" tracks differ (competitiveness, total compensation/compensation structure, career trajectory etc.). Is one track objectively "better" than the other? The Blackstone Life Sciences website seems to advertise a large # of MDs/PhDs (https://www.blackstone.com/our-businesses/life-sc…), making me feel that perhaps they tend to prefer those with medical backgrounds as opposed to the pure IB--> PE person but was wondering what your thoughts were.
Thanks.
Hi Associate 1 in Consulting, no, I never sleep and so I can respond to any lonely threads (like this one) at all hours of the night. Impressive, I know ;-)
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Fingers crossed that one of those helps you.
Really curious if you found answers to these questions. Current incoming med student interested in LS PE and possibly MBB. Feel free to shoot me a pm.
Yes they are very different. Life sciences teams generally invest not to take control of a company but rather to take a minority stake in a promising life sciences company. Given the different business profile of a LS company vs a typical LBO target, it is rare that this universe of companies would lend themselves to an LBO due to their insufficient capacity to service the debt required. Typical investments might be to finance a clinical trial of a promising drug in exchange for royalties on that drug or adding assets to a platform type biotech a la Bluebird. Comp wise, at the mid levels it should be in line with direct PE roles. At higher levels it will be dominated by carry which is a function of fund returns. Given that these are relatively new strategies, there's not enough track record to say what returns will look like but one notable point is that returns won't be able to depend on leverage as much as they usually do in LBO funds. Job wise, I think it would be really interesting for someone with a scientific background (if you still enjoy science) because alot of time will be spent diligencing the potential of a new drug, MoA, modality etc. Vs. a typical PE fund where you would spend more time on boring legal, financial, regulatory etc diligence. These teams are in some ways more competitive to get into because there are very few seats but on the other hand there are also far fewer eligible candidates who have the prerequisite scientific background.
This is a great response, really insightful. So since there isn't any leverage as you mentioned (which can make carry so powerful in typical PE), would you guess that partner level comp would tend to be lower than typical PE partners?
Not necessarily. The flip side to the leverage point is that it's a much newer space to invest in so there hasn't been decades of returns erosion due to high competition as seen in typical PE.
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