Life science RE careers?

I don't want to make any sweeping generalizations because I'm sure there are going to be exceptions out there somewhere...but it doesn't look great for your friend. With 0 RE experience and only an MBA I wouldn't even call it a guarantee of getting hired in an acquisitions role or asset management role at a good number of shops. This is for a couple reasons:

1. With that much life science research experience, I would assume the person is at least in their mid 40's if not older? Assuming they aren't going to be working for another 40 years, they wouldn't be at the company for the long haul. A lot of the analysts that are hired are hired to be churned through (not sure a 40+ year old would fit that mold) or grow with the company and move their way up the corporate ladder. Your friend might be nearing retirement age by the time they get to a senior associate or Director level, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it's not ideal for a company that is looking to promote from within that their senior associate would be pushing 60's.

2. The skill set that they acquired over their entire adult life (minus the last 2 years for the MBA) has zero correlation with the industry and very few transferable skills if any. This would certainly be a negative factor when being considered against a 22-26 year old that has spent the last 4-8 years studying/working in a real estate or finance related field. Again, not impossible to overcome, but definitely a major disadvantage. When I'm looking to hire an analyst, and from what I know about other companies, we are looking for people who can step in and need as little training as possible to have a seamless transition, which is unlikely with someone who has no practical experience. The other thing we would look for outside of prior work experience is molding someone into what we want. 22-26 year old's are easier to mold than someone who's on the back-half of their working career. 

3. Compensation expectations are just not realistic for experience in this industry. Most analysts that aren't at the Blackstone or Starwood's of the world are making around 65-85k base and a 10-20% bonus. Granted, a HCOL city vs LCOL city might add or subtract 10-15k in the base salary, but a far cry from $200k. Most people in REPE or Dev don't hit the 200k mark until Director/VP level and that would be after about 8-10 YOE (some associates might barely break into this range on the high end of the compensation spectrum, but most don't). If your friend is looking to keep that same compensation or more, they aren't going to get an interview with most places and if they ask during the first interview, there won't be a second. If someone is willing to bring them in as an associate (I don't see this being particularly likely, but I wouldn't say impossible), then your friend might be sniffing the 150k-170k range, again depending on COL in their city. 

Overall, is it completely out of the realm of possibility? No. Is it extremely unlikely that they'll find a job in this market at their compensation and lack of experience? Yes. Maybe they could be a leasing broker for medical office since they would know what specs are required for certain types of practices, and being a broker could certainly lead to a higher paycheck eventually and since they don't receive a salary, people are more willing to bring on new agents. Wish I could have a more positive outlook, and maybe someone can provide other feedback that is more optimistic...but that is very late in someone's career to switch entirely and expect to keep their same comp with no experience.