Promotion or Lateral at Global Top 10 Biotech - which looks better to M7?

Hey All. I'm a long time lurker on this forum - now I've found myself in quite a bind and need some advice.

My Background
I currently work at one of the top 10 largest biotech firms in world in Sales Operations. I have been with the company since I graduated. I have a bit of a unique background:

• Chemical Engineering Undergraduate with a 3.11 GPA from a no-name state school in the northeast

• GMAT: No official score but my official practice tests have been 710 -> 740 -> 780 -> 770. Planning to take the official test sometime next month.

• Planning to apply to full time programs at some point in the next 2 - 3 year. M7 is where I am shooting, but I would take any school in the top 15. If I can't get into a program in the top 15, then I won't pursue b-school.

• Very fast career progression within my firm:

  • R&D Internship

  • Project Engineering Consultant (1 year)

  • Engineering Project Manager Consultant (1 year)

  • Lead Sales Operations Analyst (10 months, present)

• My goal is to work in Corporate Development at a large biotech company, focusing on the development in emerging markets.

My Story
I found engineering to be really boring after sophomore year, which, combined with my massive load of extracurricular activities (president of a student org, 20 hrs/wk off-campus job, 10 hrs/wk research) caused my GPA to take on a sharp downward trend.

After doing a biotech internship, I knew that I wanted to work in the industry but felt I had to use my degree to see what "real" engineering was like. I joined an engineering consulting firm where I specialized in bioprocess automation, and through sheer luck ended up back at the company I did my internship with.

I realized in my first few months out of school that I didn't like engineering, and was far more interested in the commercial side of the industry - this is when I decided to go to business school. I knew that my career progression would be important to good programs, so I poured my effort into my career while simultaneously looking for opportunities in the commercial side of the business. I took on a lot of responsibility at the consulting firm and was promoted to project manager in ~1 year After a year of managing projects at the same client and networking heavily, I was offered a high visibility role within the Sales Operations group designing compensation plans for sales teams.

I've done extremely well in this role and after ~10 months I've been offered a promotion to Manager and a sizable raise (~22k). The only issue is that I've also been offered a senior analyst role in the Drug Pricing Strategy group - an area which I am far more interested in. Drug pricing is hot issue right now in the biotech world, and my analyst role would be high impact - developing quantitative negotiation strategies and business cases for new products.

The Options

• Manager Role:

  • Cons:

    • Compensation Design is a complete dead end as a career path, people tend to get stuck in these types of roles unless they transfer out early. Taking this job would mean that an MBA changes from "nice to have" to "need to have" for future career advancement.

    • After 10 months of working in this group I am getting pretty bored of the work.

  • Pros:

    • Extra 20k would be extremely helpful in paying off my massive undergrad loans

    • Getting promoted to manager would likely make me one of the youngest (if not the youngest manager in my division), and I am guessing the fast, linear career progression would look good on b-school applications.

• Sr. Analyst Role:

  • Cons:

    • Lateral move; at best it looks like a 2nd year Sr. Analyst in a more high impact group, at worst it looks like a 2nd career change for an unfocused individual in an area that is so niche business schools won't know what to make of it.
    • Only a ~7k raise - negligible after tax.

  • Pros:

    • Extremely interesting work which is at the forefront of the US political stage. Get the opportunity to guide decisions that have massive impact on ROI.

    • Better exit opportunities within the industry if I don't get into a good business school. (Lots of boutique MC firms who are desperate for this type of experience, as well as many internal positions which require knowledge of complex pricing dynamics)

    • Possibility of quick promotion to manager - company just went through a merger and many of the current managers aren't relocating to our city - once their jobs open up in 3-6 months I would hopefully have another shot at a manger level role.

My Question
I have no clue what to do here. I have asked so many people in the industry what the better move is and the responses have been split down the middle. Does anyone have any insight into how each of these roles would look to business schools? Are my stats/career progression even good enough for M7? Should I forget about business school and just try to claw my way up the ladder?

Any advice is appreciated.