Pharma, Biotech, CROs and Beyond: A Simple Guide to the Different Types of Life Sciences Companies
If you're trying to get a job in the pharmaceutical industry, one of the first things to understand is that “pharma” is much bigger than pharma companies.
There’s Big Pharma. Small and mid-sized pharmaceutical companies. Biotech. CROs. CDMOs. Medical device companies. Diagnostics companies. And plenty of companies that sit somewhere between these categories.
This matters when you’re job searching.
If you only search the career pages of the biggest pharmaceutical companies, you’re seeing just one part of the life sciences job market.
So, here’s a simple guide to the main types of companies you’ll come across — what they actually do, some examples, and where you might find opportunities.
1. Big Pharma
These are the large, multinational pharmaceutical companies most people immediately think of when they hear “the pharmaceutical industry.”
Examples include Roche, Novartis, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, GSK, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson and Merck/MSD.
Big Pharma companies typically have multiple medicines on the market, large R&D organisations and operations across many countries. They may work across several therapeutic areas at the same time, such as oncology, immunology, neuroscience, cardiovascular disease or rare diseases.
Because of their size, they also tend to have a huge variety of functions.
You might find roles in:
Medical Affairs
Clinical Development
Clinical Operations
Regulatory Affairs
Pharmacovigilance/Drug Safety
Market Access
Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR)
Commercial
Manufacturing and Supply Chain
Quality
R&D
Data and Digital
Corporate functions
What are they like to work for?
Generally, larger companies have more established structures, processes and career pathways. There may also be more opportunities to move internally between functions, therapeutic areas or countries.
The trade-off is that large organisations can be complex. There may be multiple layers of decision-making and highly specialised roles.
How to find jobs: Start with the company's careers website and LinkedIn, but don't stop at searching “scientist” or “pharma jobs.” Search by function: Medical Affairs, Clinical Development, Regulatory, Market Access, Safety, Quality and so on.
2. Small and Mid-Sized Pharma
Not every pharmaceutical company employs tens of thousands of people.
There are many small and mid-sized pharmaceutical companies developing and commercialising medicines, often with a much smaller portfolio or a focus on particular therapeutic areas.
Some may already have marketed products. Others may have one or two major drugs progressing through clinical development.
The big difference for job seekers is often scope.
In a large company, your role may be quite specialised. In a smaller company, one person may cover responsibilities that would be divided between several teams in Big Pharma.
That can mean broader experience and greater exposure to senior leadership — but it can also mean fewer resources and less established infrastructure.
When searching for jobs, look beyond company names you already recognise. Industry news, conference exhibitor lists, LinkedIn and lists of companies working within your therapeutic area can uncover employers you may never have heard of.
3. Biotech
Biotechnology companies, usually shortened to biotech, develop medicines and technologies using biological science.
The boundary between “biotech” and “pharma” has become increasingly blurry, but biotech companies are often associated with newer technologies and scientific platforms.
You might see companies working on:
Cell and gene therapy
RNA therapeutics
Antibodies
Vaccines
Precision medicine
Gene editing
Rare diseases
Immuno-oncology
Biotechs can range from tiny start-ups with a handful of employees to large global companies that look increasingly similar to traditional pharma.
A smaller biotech may have no products on the market at all. Its value may depend heavily on its technology and clinical pipeline.
That makes biotech exciting — but potentially more volatile.
Clinical trial results, regulatory decisions and financing can have a major impact on the future of a small biotech company.
For job seekers, biotech can be particularly interesting if you enjoy science, innovation and environments where roles are less rigidly defined.
4. CROs — Contract Research Organizations
A CRO is a Contract Research Organization.
Pharmaceutical and biotech companies don't conduct every aspect of clinical research themselves. They often outsource parts of drug development to CROs.
CROs can support activities such as:
Clinical trial management
Site selection and monitoring
Data management
Biostatistics
Medical writing
Pharmacovigilance
Regulatory support
Real-world evidence
Examples include IQVIA, ICON, Parexel, Fortrea and Medpace.
CROs are particularly important for anyone interested in clinical research careers.
For example, many Clinical Research Associates (CRAs) work for CROs rather than directly for pharmaceutical companies.
A CRO can also be a useful entry point into industry because you're working directly with pharmaceutical and biotech clients and learning how drug development operates across different companies and studies.
When job searching, try terms such as Clinical Research Associate, Clinical Trial Associate, Clinical Project Manager, Medical Writer, Drug Safety, Regulatory Affairs, Data Management and Biostatistics.
5. CDMOs — Contract Development and Manufacturing Organizations
This is another acronym worth knowing.
A CDMO is a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization.
Instead of running clinical trials, CDMOs primarily help pharmaceutical and biotech companies develop and manufacture their products.
A company developing a new drug may have brilliant scientists and promising clinical data without owning the factories required to manufacture that drug at scale.
That's where CDMOs come in.
They may support:
Process development
Formulation
Analytical development
Manufacturing
Scale-up
Fill and finish
Packaging
Quality control
Supply chain
Examples include Lonza, Catalent and Thermo Fisher Scientific's pharma services businesses.
CDMOs can be especially interesting for people with backgrounds in chemistry, biochemistry, engineering, manufacturing, quality, validation, analytical sciences or supply chain.
If your job search has focused entirely on pharmaceutical companies, CDMOs can open up a completely different pool of potential employers.
6. Medical Device Companies
Not every healthcare product is a drug.
Medical device companies develop products used to diagnose, monitor, prevent or treat medical conditions.
That can include everything from relatively simple devices to extremely sophisticated technologies.
Think:
Surgical equipment
Pacemakers
Insulin pumps
Continuous glucose monitors
Orthopaedic implants
Robotic surgery systems
Imaging equipment
Wearable medical technologies
Examples include Medtronic, Abbott, Boston Scientific, Stryker and Edwards Lifesciences.
Device companies employ many of the same types of professionals you'll see in pharma — including people working in Medical Affairs, Clinical Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, Quality and Market Access.
But the regulatory environment, evidence generation and product lifecycle can be quite different.
If you have been targeting pharma roles without success, it's worth asking whether your skills could transfer into MedTech.
7. Diagnostics Companies
Diagnostics companies develop tests and technologies that help detect, diagnose or monitor disease.
These might include:
Blood tests
Molecular diagnostics
Genetic tests
Companion diagnostics
Pathology technologies
Point-of-care tests
Laboratory platforms
Examples include Roche Diagnostics, Abbott, bioMérieux and Qiagen.
Diagnostics sits at the intersection of medicine, laboratory science, technology and data.
This can make it particularly relevant for people coming from laboratory medicine, molecular biology, genetics, pathology or biomedical science backgrounds.
And again, don't assume your previous job title needs to exist in exactly the same form. Look at the underlying skills the company needs.
8. Other Parts of the Life Sciences Ecosystem
There are plenty of other employers worth knowing about too.
For example, you may come across CMOs (Contract Manufacturing Organizations), which focus primarily on manufacturing, and CSOs (Contract Sales Organizations), which provide outsourced commercial teams.
There are also healthcare communications and medical education agencies, regulatory consultancies, market access and HEOR consultancies, health-tech and digital health companies, laboratory and research technology companies, and specialist life sciences consulting firms.
The point is not to memorise every acronym.
The point is to understand that the industry is an ecosystem.
A medicine can pass through dozens of organisations during its journey from an idea in a laboratory to a treatment used by patients.
So Where Should You Look for Jobs?
One of the biggest mistakes I see candidates make is building their job search around a very short list of famous pharmaceutical companies.
Instead, build a target company list across the ecosystem.
Start with the type of work you want to do.
Then ask: What kinds of companies employ people to do this work?
For example, someone interested in clinical research could investigate pharma companies, biotechs, CROs, medical device companies and diagnostics companies.
Someone interested in manufacturing or quality could look at pharma, biotech, CDMOs, device companies and manufacturing organisations.
Someone interested in Medical Affairs could consider pharma and biotech, but also MedTech, diagnostics and some specialist agencies.
Then search strategically.
Use LinkedIn Jobs and company career pages, but also follow industry news, look at companies attending relevant conferences, search biotech clusters and science parks, explore companies developing products in your therapeutic area, and pay attention to smaller organisations you've never heard of.
And when you find an interesting company, don't just ask:
“Do they have a job advertised for me today?”
Ask:
“Is this the kind of company that employs people with my skills?”
If the answer is yes, add it to your target list and keep it on your radar.
The Bigger Your Industry Map, the Bigger Your Job Market
Breaking into industry becomes much harder when your entire search consists of repeatedly checking the same ten Big Pharma career pages.
There are thousands of organisations involved in developing medicines, running clinical trials, manufacturing products, generating evidence, developing diagnostics and bringing healthcare technologies to patients.
You don't need to target all of them.
But you do need to know they exist.
Because sometimes the opportunity that gets you into industry isn't at the pharmaceutical company whose name everybody recognises.
It might be at the biotech you've never heard of, the CRO running its clinical trials, the CDMO manufacturing its product or the diagnostics company developing the test used alongside it.
Don't just search for pharma jobs. Learn the ecosystem — and search the whole industry.
Ready to make your move into industry?
Understanding which roles exist is the first step. Figuring out where your clinical experience fits, and how to position yourself for those roles, is the harder part.
The Pharma Pivot Program is designed to help professionals translate their existing experience into an industry career strategy, strengthen their positioning and approach their pharma job search with a clear plan.
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