Sharing my experience and transition. If you resonate, that's great. If you feel motivated, amazing. If you could help, I'll be grateful.
I did my Doctor of Pharmacy course in 2016 and graduated around 2021–22. At that point, I honestly didn’t know what I was supposed to do or where the degree would take me. During COVID, I saw a lot of people move into Clinical SAS, but by the time I started looking seriously, the market had become much harder. Even having a SAS certification didn’t necessarily make a difference.
So I decided to look at companies building AI in healthcare. I joined a company working heavily with oncology AI and real-world data, and stayed there for almost three years. That experience made me realise how valuable oncology experience can be in pharma, so I stuck with it. I later had an opportunity to become a team lead at another company for significantly better pay, but I turned it down because I couldn’t see a long-term career trajectory there.
I then wanted to move closer to clinical research. By that point, I was already experienced and companies were increasingly hiring freshers for entry-level clinical research roles at very low salaries. I was even rejected once because I was considered overqualified. Looking back, I sometimes regret turning down an early opportunity where I could have worked across clinical research, data management and trial coordination, simply because the salary was around ₹20,000.
So, if you’re a recent graduate and want to build a career in healthcare corporates, my advice would be: if you get an opportunity to work in clinical research, even as a Clinical Research Coordinator or Associate, take it for six months or a year if you can. That experience can make future transitions much easier.
Today, I work for a company that operates around clinical research rather than directly within clinical research. I have experience with CTMS and clinical-trial-related data, so I’m now looking at roles involving CTMS, trial documentation and clinical operations. But that path is relatively narrow.
After almost six years of working and still being below ₹10 LPA, I’ve started thinking much more strategically about where I want to go next. MSL and Medical Affairs were possibilities, I received calls from companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Novartis and Servier, but I turned them down because the travel requirements wouldn’t work for me. I had recently undergo a major knee surgery.
Medical writing is another option, but breaking into it at this stage can be difficult because companies often prefer people who started their careers specifically in medical writing. Regulatory affairs is also competitive, and although I had some exposure to the IRB side of things, it isn’t a direction I want to pursue.
One area I think people should seriously consider is HEOR (Health Economics and Outcomes Research). It combines healthcare knowledge with analytical skills. Depending on the role, you may need advanced Excel, SQL and either Python or R, along with an understanding of health-economic models. There are several courses available, although some are expensive. It can also be a particularly useful path if you eventually want to work abroad.
The area I’m most interested in right now, however, is Competitive Intelligence.
Competitive Intelligence is essentially about understanding the market and continuously tracking what competitors are doing. Imagine your company has a drug in Phase II while a competitor’s similar molecule is already in Phase III. You’re not just asking what the competitor is doing, you’re asking why. If their Phase III trial is delayed, was it because of recruitment problems, eligibility criteria, safety issues, or something else? What does that mean for your own drug? Does it give your company more time? Is there something you can learn from their molecule or clinical strategy?
That combination of clinical research, data, pharma strategy and analytical thinking is what makes Competitive Intelligence particularly interesting to me.
It’s also an underrated field. Job titles don’t always explicitly say “Competitive Intelligence”; you often have to read the job description carefully to identify the work. Startups may expect you to do everything manually in Excel for relatively low pay, while larger pharma and biotech companies use specialised intelligence platforms and generally have better-defined roles.
So that’s where I am right now: trying to move from simply having experience in healthcare data to building a career around pharma strategy, analytics and competitive intelligence. It’s not an easy transition, but I think being intentional about the direction is better than continuing to move sideways without a clear trajectory.