Hi all,A bit of career advice needed - I recently finished my PhD in medical/life-sciences and would like to get into healthcare/pharma finance. I keep seeing adverts for positions I would quite like to get into asking for an academic background like mine, but with a year or two finance or consultancy experience. I have little work experience and have only been to a short finance course at LBS.So far I have been applying to consultancy firms with strengths in this area like LEK and wonder if:-this the best way to go given my academic background?-should I consider going for a more out and out financial role and try to get into the healthcare/pharma sectors later?-are there any specific healthcare finance specialists I should apply to (and not necessarily consultancies per se)?-should I consider taking some sort of formal qualification?Help would be greatly appreciated. I know where I want to go but just need some directions on how to get there.

I think McKinsey are strong in this area too. Have you considered IMS health and ZS? I think IMS are making a push to develop their consulting practice and ZS are marketing consultants in this sector.

I fired off a CV to ZS a couple of weeks ago - not heard anything yet. Will do the same for IMS.Thanks!ps - dinged from McK (!)

Anyone have more advice??

Hi,Besides LEK and McKinsey, BCG and Monitor have very strong healthcare practices. Monitor, in particular, is very big in pharma, being reliant on the sector for more than 1/3 of revenues. It's also a pleasant firm to work for. Hope this heps.