Vault’s Verdict

If comments from insiders are anything to go by, Lifescience Dynamics appears to have had an extremely busy 2022—so busy that insiders struggled to find a reasonable balance between work and life. However, there may be some relief on the horizon: at the time our survey was conducted, the firm had just completed a hiring cycle, adding some much-needed talent to the mix to help cope with the strong demand.

Of course, all of that demand generates fantastic learning and growth opportunities, which happens to be an aspect of life at the firm that insiders are extremely enthusiastic about. Less so: the compensation package which, when considered alongside the aforementioned work life balance struggles, seems to be significantly below industry averages.

All told, this is still a firm that is in growth mode, and that appears to be building out processes as it continues to scale. For many, the opportunity to be part of growing and defining the company may well outweigh the shorter-term pain points—but that’s a decision for each individual to make for themselves.

Firm Culture

“Excellent opportunity to engage with upper management in meaningful ways for professional development.”

“Fast paced, with regular burnout, but you learn more than you would elsewhere.”

“Hard working founder and owner who is easy to deal with and is very knowledgeable and experienced and helps in training opportunities.”

“Lifescience Dynamics will challenge you as an employee but learning opportunities and quality of team members is second-to-none.”

“The people at the company are phenomenal. Some senior team members are very approachable and you can talk freely to them about anything at all. Colleagues are like friends and there is no unhealthy political competition going on. The CEO, Founder and his wife are the nicest people who really try to do the best by their employees.”

Quality of Life

“Being remote is a plus, however work life balance is non-existent.”

“Quality of life is good, but can get busy during certain points of the year. It is easy to take off time if planned in advance. Work is completely remote, which is a very nice benefit.”

“The firm promotes a great culture of comradery and mutual respect, but where it lacks is work-life balance. It has hired new people to oversee the assignment of people's hours. Fundamentally, we have had too few people to the number of projects and overall morale of the company's analysts is low.  

In terms of positives, taking time off is a bit tedious to get approved due to working several projects, however, the annual leave policy is generous and the company recently launched a purchase program to buy more leave days. You can't sell your unused though, which is a good way to encourage employees to take leave and reset.”

“The people and culture at the firm are fantastic and top tier. The firm is however quite busy with projects and depending on the project mix you are on, this leads to late nights and difficulties booking time off that doesn't conflict with other project demands/timelines.

The projects are all enriching and interesting, and the colleagues I get to work with are top-notch and push me to be better every day.”

“Very easy to work from home, gives you extreme flexibility to work while travelling, easy to balance work and life in this firm and the firm provides great benefits and organizes events in various parts of the world where you can work and enjoy the different cultures and socialize with the team members.”

Compensation

“Best aspect is salary. Worst aspect is healthcare for U.S. employees. While the plan costs $1 per month, it has a very high deductible as a result and has very poor coverage of medical expenses on top of that.”

“Best: Salary is good as you progress into more advanced positions within the company. Worst: Spouse/dependents not included as part of health insurance package.”

“Compensation is low for industry standards. The firm does try to offset this with benefits, and flexibility, but the high workload typically blunts these efforts.”

“Impressive salary growth, good package and equality in pay, bonuses received during holiday celebrations and birthdays. Medical and dental insurance. Flexible work hours. Gym package also included in benefits.”

“The compensation is lower than other firms, but from discussions with people at other firms the culture and work/life balance appears to be better.”

Career Development

“Best: Opportunity to grow and gain new skills (ie. BD opoortunities from the start), travel opportunity. 

Worst: More structured trainings will be helpful, better resourcing to have a more controlled growth will be better.”

“Even at an entry level, employees are granted opportunities to work across an array of projects and are given ample client-facing exposure. Formal training opportunities could be improved, with addition dedicated sessions to train all staff members on additional skills.”

“Promotion policies are not consistent and often leave a lot of unanswered questions around early promotions/delayed promotions. Policies keep changing too, and negatively affect those who were next in line.”

“The company has made and is making an effort to improve the process for employee review and promotion. To date, it isn't a transparent process and there isn't a clear list of performance expectations for each job title, clear guidance for how to rate other employees’ performance as part of the review or a general understanding of how this information is used with regard to promotions. As such, the ratings are arbitrary and the process opaque.”

“Things are busy at the firm, as such career development can sometimes take a back seat. That being said, everyone at the firm takes it seriously and is more than willing to mentor/train, even if informally.

If you have time to volunteer and help out across projects, there's almost nothing you can't get involved in; finding time to do this however is extremely challenging given the rigorous demands on a typical analyst/consultant's time.”

Community Engagement

“Company has built an exceptionally diverse staff with respect to ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ+ and all candidates have equal opportunity.”

“I strongly feel that all consultants have equal access to opportunities. There is no targeted effort to foster diversity, but it's not something that has ever been an issue. Gender split favors women, the company is very international, and a number of employees identify as LGBTQ+.”

“My firm gives equal opportunities of work to all the above categories with regards to women, ethnicity, LGBTQ and disabled individuals. They consider everyone like a family member. Yes, I feel that all consultants at my firm have equal access to interesting/high-quality work and have been provided great promotion opportunities. Every consultant is valued highly and respected fully in every aspect.”

“There is a real focus on equality of opportunity at the firm. No matter who you are, you are given a chance to dig in deep, learn a lot on projects, and push your career progression forward. The CEO has cultivated an extremely diverse staff, and this is a really wonderful opportunity to work with folks from all over the world, with very different backgrounds from your own. A wonderful opportunity to gain new insight and new perspective.”

“Very diverse company that is proud of it!”

Business Outlook

“Company has posted consistent YoY revenue growth for over 10 years. Management is generally well in-tune with concerns of staff.”

“I think LSD does stand out from its competitors because of the quality of our work. Employee morale can be low sometimes due to burnout and projects that are more demanding than others. LSD does try to stay relevant in the field and push innovative products and introduce new arms to the company (consulting). However, the constant change in management really affects the bottom line sometimes (MA area) and could sometimes make employees feel less confidence in upper management.”

“Major strength includes employees having greater professional degrees. Culture has been a positive and employees seem generally willing to go the extra effort in ensuring smooth operations and growth. Weaknesses include somewhat poor resource management, but that is being rectified by greater HR support and additional roles being added.”

“The major weakness to the company is low employee morale related to work-life balance which I expect will improve following recent hiring campaigns. The overall company outlook is positive.”

“Very highly motivated and hard working leadership, continuously trying its best to motivate and satisfy each and every team member, any team member gets immediately hired once they join our firm, educates and trains each staff very well and spends very on growth and promotion to maintain their satisfaction and boosts their morale that develops great energy and healthy atmosphere working environment among peers.”

Hiring Process

“Attentive recruitment coordinators looking for friendly, bright, well-rounded applicants.”  

“I believe that the interview process is structured to pass candidates who have a high degree of critical thinking, resourcefulness, and understanding of the pharmaceutical sector. Candidates must have at least a Master's degree. Depending on the position, an ideal candidate is one that is able to present themselves well under pressure, are able to efficiently multi-task, and meet a pressing deadline. By  the end of the process, it is fairly clear who would make a good addition to the company and who will not.”

“LSD actively seeks candidates and is looking for someone with a great understanding of science, the pharmaceutical industry and a calling to strategy and CI.”

“We typically have a series of 3 interviews to assess candidates as a fit for our firm in terms of technical, and social capabilities.”

Interview Questions

“Case studies include open-ended questions to gauge the understanding of CI and the industry, and real work day scenarios to understand how they would go about working in the role.”

“How do you deal with pressure or stressful situations?”

“Following completion of a written test, candidates have three separate interviews whereby they answer fit questions, are asked case study questions, and deliver a 20-min presentation based on a prompt. Fit questions look at a candidate's approach to working in a team, taking ownership of work, and desire for applying.”

“Typically a candidate will have to prepare a presentation on a therapeutic area to define all drugs/competitors in the landscape and to pick up current trends in the space.”

“We conduct 3 interviews: a presentation, case studies and fit. I can't recall specific case study questions from my recruitment.”