Prescient Healthcare Group EMEA

Vault’s Verdict

Having experienced significant growth over the past five years, the team behind Prescient Healthcare Group have their eyes set on continued expansion in the months and years ahead—making this firm an exciting place to be for anyone with an interest in helping to grow a thriving life sciences boutique. 

Day-to-day, life at PHG is characterized by a supportive culture, with several insiders noting that weekly time commitments rarely exceed the 45–50-hour mark, even during peak periods. While that definitely comes with a tradeoff in terms of compensation, the people-first culture is also exemplified in the firm’s flexible approach to where and when work can happen. All told, then, this is a firm that will appeal to anyone seeking a challenging career in life sciences without sacrificing on personal life.

Firm Culture

“A company that cares and puts people first—we are all humans here to do the best job we can and that is fully respected by all.”

“Great opportunity to join a firm wanting to make a difference in healthcare, with a strategic vision to become a leader in its field(s) and in a growth phase and opportunities for career advancement.”

“If you want to work with great people, who have your back at all times, to keep learning and growing with great coaching and mentoring in an industry (pharma/healthcare) with a strong focus on helping patients, then I can't recommend this highly enough.”

“Prescient is a focused, product-specific strategy firm that demands high scientific knowledge gained from academia, industry or consulting. With laser focus, the company is positioned to provide high level strategic consultancy across the pharmaceutical value chain including clinical development, medical affairs, commercialization, and portfolio development. The firm invests in high caliber staff and provides a flexible working environment focused on learning and leadership.”

“Very strong commitment to promoting work/life balance. Senior leadership always looking at ways to ensure employees get time back.”

Quality of Life

“Firm very flexible on travel requirements, focusing on only those that really add to clients. Easy to take time off, many days per year provided, above competitors.”

“We are in consulting so its fundamentally a client service roll which bring a level of expectation and pressure, but we have great client partnerships so there is a lot of give and take within the context we are in.”

“Like any project-based business, there are peaks in workload but these are managed very well. The resourcing team makes sure the team is supported, we are encouraged to take time back and TOIL and our culture team make sure we are coping with high workload and our general wellbeing. It is genuinely an exceptional level of support. Additionally, the culture and values are real, tangible elements of the business and lived by the team day to day.”

“Predominantly work from home which allows a good work/life balance and a degree of flexibility. The working week can be long during the critical phases of projects and if within a global team, meetings will occur early morning or evening. However, during quieter periods, staff are encouraged to take time off and will experience more 'normal' working days with less pressure.”

“The hours are much more balanced when compared to other consultancies. I work on average between 40-45 hours per week, and rarely over 50. It's very easy to take time off, and we get a good holiday allowance. I personally enjoy travelling around the world to see clients and there is plenty of scope to do this at PHG, but it is not forced on you and some (e.g., those with young families) can travel much less frequently if they want. We also have a flexible working from home policy, where it is 'recommended' that you work in the office at least 1-2 days per week, but if people choose to work from home, their decision is respected. There is a great culture, which is much more 'flat' than other consultancies and not hierarchical, in addition to regular social events and 'treats' organised by an internal 'culture club.'”

Compensation

“A very keen eye on the external world both in terms of inflationary pressures but also the job market
and ensuring remuneration is in line with what is required to attract and retain the best talent.”

“Best is the bonus being shared equally across the organisation due to our routine high performance - everyone feels tied into contributing throughout the year to delivering quality work, efficiently, so we all share in the profits of this.”

“I think it is an incredibly fair package with lots of holistic benefits from the positive working environment to profit related bonus to healthcare cover. The development, review and progression process in incredibly equitable (including recently providing pay rises across the board to cover cost of living pressure). There is nothing I would say is 'worst' at all.”

“I'd say the base salary, compared to other consultancies, is average. However, I work significantly less hours than employees of some other consultancies, so I'd say my position is favourable! The profit-related bonus is great, and since I've been at the company, we've never not received a good bonus, as we've had excellent company growth. However, if the company did not hit profit targets (for whatever reason) then little/no bonus would be a big miss.”

“The best aspects are salary sacrifice for pension contributions, thereby saving on national insurance. Bonus is aligned with industry standard, share package has the potential to be lucrative if Prescient delivers on target and private equity sell the business. Pay bands are quite large meaning increases salary opportunities within the same role. Bonus is aligned with industry standard.”

Career Development

“Best—a very encouraging culture, there is no competition for roles, the full team are so proud of everyone who has been promoted (in other companies this can be shadowed by jealousy and feelings of failure). Worst—our job roles are so broad and every project/team is different so it can be hard to know what exactly you need to do/ display to reach the next level.”

“Equal opportunities for career development irrespective of gender, race etc. Newly started learning and development platform provides a very good opportunity to take your development in your own hands.”

“Genuine opportunity to continually progress and develop both personally and professionally, not reigned in by organizational rigidity—only downside is finding the time outside of delivering on core business to dedicate to development.”

“Prescient offers a well-defined career path from analyst through to Vice President (Partner). Performance reviews are undertaken annually. The company is willing to promote if expectations of each role have been met. Prescient has an internal training academy in operation that offers many courses so employees can train in their own time. Mentoring exists throughout the company. Business development and account management training have recently been improved.”

“The promotion process is excellent—they don't hold you back and instead push you to develop and challenge yourself. There is not a strict set of criteria or boxes to be ticked that one needs to fulfil to move to the next level - when you, your line manager and the leadership team think you're ready, you move up. Only minor downside is that promotions are done twice a year, so that if you just miss out in January for example, you have to wait another 6 months.”

Community Engagement

“As the office is based in London, all walks of life are welcome and the team comes from numerous countries with different backgrounds and everyone is respected. I feel that regardless of background everyone has a fair opportunity to learn, develop and be promoted.”

“Prescient has an LGBTQ+ group who meet regularly to review and refine the company's policies. There is a strong mix of ethnic and gender diversity in the business. Promotions are performance driven and no discrimination exists.”

“Race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation do not matter at Prescient. Everyone has the same opportunities and minorities are even encouraged to be a part of the team. We have a women and LGBTQ+ initiative and everyone is welcome. We always have a diverse team from all over the world staffed on Projects and we are more women than men at Prescient.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that everyone at my company has equal opportunity regardless of their background. We have an amazingly diverse workforce when it comes to gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation.”

“With offices across the globe from the US, UK, Germany, to India, there is an incredibly diver team. I work with colleagues from the US, India, Bulgaria, Romania, Germany, the UK (off the top of my head). And the senior leadership group contains a number of women, LGBTQ+ individuals including our Head of Finance, Head of People and Culture, Head of Market Research, Head of Quant. The next step would be to increase the representation at the top/board level.”

Business Outlook

“Business outlook is promising, aggressive EBITDA targets are being delivered on through strong YoY growth, both organically and through acquisition. Strong leadership team who have built value and taken business through previous rounds of private equity. The company is very well regarded within competitive intelligence, however, it is currently building and growing its reputation in product consultancy across clinical development, medical affairs, commercial and market access.”

“Pharma is a competitive market which is a pressure. Inflationary pressures cause challenges where MSA's have fixed rate cards for 2+ years, however these pressures are with the market rather than our company.”

“Rapidly growing specialist niche - we regularly displace larger competitors. We combine strategy consulting capabilities with deep scientific know-how- most of our accounts grow very rapidly once our first project has been delivered.”

“The business continues to grow significantly faster than competitors in the field, however the growth continues to outpace hires which makes current employees working on numerous projects simultaneously.”

“We grew over 20% every year the last five years which is above the industry. We are always fully booked and sometimes have to reject work since we do not have teams to do the work. Worst aspect is that we are growing with such a pace that we need to attract talent at the same pace.”

Hiring Process

“First phone interview (30 mins), second case study presentation and video interview (1 hour), aim to call back within 1-2 weeks. Looking for strong pharmaceutical scientific background, work ethic, attention to detail, good response to any unexpected questions, and good presentation skills.”

“Prescient seeks scientifically educated (ideally with a postgraduate degree, PhD or MBA) professionals including MDs, who can provide strong scientific consultancy across development, launch, commercialization and maturity of medicines, with a focus on oncology and immunology. Call backs will occur if someone has registered an interest on working for the business through the website or referral (Prescient offers a £500 referral bonus to any successfully employed candidates) or an interview arranged following career fairs in consultation with major Universities.”

“Strong and objective feedback, regardless of success which helps improve the interviewee, both the one that has not been selected to advance further in the interview process as well as to the selected ones, seeing the matching, what qualities are found more relevant.”

“The firm was very quick to organize interviews and were great at communicating throughout the process.”

“We are quite efficient usually making decisions within 24 hours of final interview. We are seeking open minded, entrepreneurial problem solvers with either a science background (undergrad, masters, PhD or MD) or commercial backgrounds able to operate in scientific context.”

Interview Questions

“(Drug) market sizing, life cycle management strategy, competitive strategy.”

“Case studies, e.g. 'a client comes to you with the following business challenge... build a project approach that you think will most effectively address that business challenge.' This is then presented to 3-4 members of the leadership team.”

“How would your teammates describe you? What motivates you? Give me an example of when you have successfully resolved a difficult situation. Give me an example when you have analysed multiple information sources to synthesize critical insights. What do you do for fun?”

“Questions regarding their 'cultural' fit, will they be enjoyable to work with, will they encourage their colleagues to grow professionally and personally, do they want to help people learn, will they share out opportunities, will they ensure the work-life balance of their colleagues is maintained as much as possible.”

“We ask people about competence such as previous experience, situations where they managed different situations, the decisions they made, the culture fit and values, their interests and reasons for interest in the role, transferrable skills. We also have competence case studies with a 'live' case study where information is shared, and a marketing task is set to understand their thinking process which they share with a small team in a Q&A session. We also include a group discussion with a wider group of the team to get a feel for their personality and values and fit, which is extremely useful on both sides.”