Business Analyst
What this job does:
Serves as a bridge between business stakeholders and data and technical teams in a life sciences or pharma organization, translating business needs into analytical requirements and delivering insights that drive operational and commercial decisions. Day-to-day includes requirements gathering, data querying and reporting, dashboard building, and presenting findings to cross-functional teams. In pharma, this role can involve analyzing commercial performance data, supporting forecasting and planning, optimizing business processes across R&D or commercial operations, and generating reports that inform brand strategy or market access decisions.
This job is similar to these lab/research tasks:
Analyzing complex datasets and identifying patterns, framing research questions and defining study requirements, designing experiments and evaluating results, translating findings into actionable conclusions
Typical starting salary range
$78k to $105k
Salary estimate represented as 25th to 75th percentile. Gathered from recent job postings, Glassdoor.com, and Salary.com
Daily task breakdown
- Data analysis, reporting, and dashboard development: Tableau, Power BI, KPI tracking (30%)
- Business requirements gathering and stakeholder engagement (25%)
- Business process analysis and improvement: workflow mapping, efficiency optimization (20%)
- Insight synthesis and presentation: recommendations for leadership, forecasting support (15%)
- Other: documentation, system administration, technology implementations (10%)
Skills you'll use in this job:
SQL and database querying; data visualization (Tableau, Power BI, Qlik); advanced Excel; business process mapping; requirements elicitation and documentation; understanding of pharma commercial data (IQVIA, Symphony Health, prescription and claims data); analytical problem-solving; communication and presentation skills; project management fundamentals; familiarity with CRM and ERP systems (Salesforce, Veeva, SAP); pharma industry knowledge; Python or R; ability to translate complex data into business-relevant insights
Talk about these PhD skills in your resume and interview:
Talk about analyzing complex datasets, identifying patterns, and translating findings into meaningful conclusions. Talk about framing research questions - analogous to defining business requirements - and designing experiments to test hypotheses, which maps directly to structuring analytical projects and validating solutions.
Alternative job titles to search:
Commercial Analyst; Commercial Business Analyst; Business Intelligence Analyst; Operations Analyst (pharma); Business Systems Analyst - Life Sciences; Insights Analyst; Market Analyst (pharma); Decision Support Analyst
*Note:
-Job titles are inconsistent between companies. Try various keywords.
-PhDs tend to undershoot seniority level. Target higher than you think.
