Life Sciences Consulting Case Interview: Pharma, Biotech, and MedTech Cases (2026)

Life sciences cases add clinical evidence, regulatory timing, reimbursement, and patient access to standard strategy logic. For a pharma or biotech prompt, follow the patient funnel from eligible population to diagnosed, treated, and accessible patients; for MedTech, add procedure volume, purchasing stakeholders, reimbursement, and adoption. A generic market-entry tree is useful only after you adapt it to those constraints.

What life sciences cases test

• Industry vocabulary matters: FDA phases, NDA/BLA, PBMs, HEOR, formulary tiers, rNPV, patent cliff, and LOE.
• The most reusable structure is market assessment, pricing strategy, payer access, and commercial model.
• ZS publishes extensively on commercial analytics and market access; the L.E.K. / LEK case interview guide is useful for strategy and diligence practice; Huron publishes healthcare-operations and commercialization work.
• Simon-Kucher's published work makes pricing and value communication relevant practice themes for many of its life-sciences roles.
• Generic consulting frameworks are only a starting point. Adapt them to payer, provider, patient, and regulator constraints before you recommend.

What Makes Life Sciences Cases Unique

The patient, provider, and payer perspectives form a useful starting lens for many commercial life-sciences cases:

• Patient: Who has the disease? How are they diagnosed? Are they treatment-naive or pre-treated?
• Provider: Which physicians prescribe? What drives their prescribing decisions (efficacy data, safety profile, peer influence, KOL opinion)?
• Payer: Will insurance cover the product, under which benefit, at which site of care, and with what prior-authorization or utilization-management requirements?

Layered over this triangle are three additional constraints that standard consulting cases do not include:

1. FDA regulatory pathway: Is this a New Drug Application (NDA) for a small molecule or a Biologics License Application (BLA) for a biologic? What clinical evidence is required for approval? What label restrictions might limit the indicated population?
2. Patent and exclusivity timelines: When does the molecule lose market exclusivity? Is a biosimilar competitor likely within the commercial forecast window?
3. Health economics and outcomes evidence: Does the product's value proposition hold up to economic and outcomes analysis? What evidence will payers require for the relevant pharmacy- or medical-benefit coverage decision?

Use only the constraints relevant to the prompt. Omitting a material regulatory, exclusivity, or evidence constraint can make the recommendation incomplete.

Which life-sciences case archetypes should you practice?

1. Drug Launch Strategy

A useful archetype is a pharma company preparing or correcting a launch. One adaptable structure is market assessment, pricing, payer access, and commercial model.

Relevant published work: L.E.K., McKinsey, BCG, and Simon-Kucher all publish on launch, portfolio, commercial, or pricing questions; that does not prove a specific interview prompt.

2. Portfolio Prioritization and Pipeline Asset Allocation

A pharma or biotech company has multiple pipeline assets at various stages and limited R&D budget. Which assets should they fund? This requires risk-adjusted NPV (rNPV) modeling (applying stage-specific probability of success to projected cash flows before discounting) alongside strategic criteria like competitive differentiation and unmet need.

Relevant published work: Strategy firms publish on portfolio and R&D prioritization; use the job description to judge likely depth.

3. Market Access and Payer Strategy

A product has been approved but access is weak. First identify whether it is primarily covered through the pharmacy benefit, medical benefit, or another reimbursement pathway. Then diagnose coverage policy, prior authorization, step therapy, site of care, provider economics, patient affordability, and evidence gaps instead of assuming every product is a PBM tier-negotiation case.

Relevant published work: ZS, Huron, and IQVIA publish on market access, evidence, analytics, or commercialization.

4. Pharma/Biotech M&A and Due Diligence

A large pharma company is evaluating acquiring a mid-size biotech with a Phase III asset. Is it worth the purchase price? This requires rNPV modeling, competitive landscape analysis, commercial potential sizing, and integration risk assessment.

Relevant published work: L.E.K., BCG, and McKinsey publish on biopharma strategy, transactions, or portfolio choices.

5. Medical Device Market Sizing

How large is the addressable market for a new surgical robot? A continuous glucose monitor? This is a medical device version of the standard market sizing framework but requires knowledge of procedure volumes, hospital purchasing dynamics, and reimbursement codes (CPT codes, DRG groupings).

Relevant published work: MedTech, healthcare, and strategy practices across several firms publish on sizing, adoption, and reimbursement.

Firms That Specialize in Life Sciences Consulting

Candidate reports for L.E.K. mention market sizing and strategic assessment, while third-party ZS guides describe commercial, market-access, pricing, and salesforce prompts. Treat both as directional reports rather than firm-wide rules. Huron's published work supports healthcare-operations and commercialization practice themes, but not a guaranteed interview inventory.

Essential Life Sciences Terminology

Before your interview, you must know these terms well enough to use them naturally, not just define them when asked.

Understanding PBM mechanics and formulary dynamics matters when the prompt names a pharmacy-benefit product. PBMs negotiate coverage and rebate arrangements for many retail and specialty drugs. Physician-administered products may instead require medical-benefit coverage, prior authorization, site-of-care analysis, provider reimbursement, and buy-and-bill economics. Identify the channel before applying the framework.

Patent cliffs are equally critical: branded drugs can lose revenue quickly after generic or biosimilar entry, especially when multiple competitors enter and substitution is easy. This makes life-cycle management (reformulations, new indications, combination products) a recurring case topic.

Fictional Worked Example: Oncology Drug Launch Strategy

Every product, competitor, access condition, and figure below is a supplied assumption for this fictional exercise.

Prompt: "Your client, a mid-size biotech, received FDA approval 6 months ago for a new PD-L1 inhibitor in second-line non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Sales are tracking 40% below forecast. What's going wrong, and what should they do?"

Step 1: Clarify the situation

• What is the target patient population size, and how many patients have been identified and treated?
• How is the infused product covered across commercial and Medicare medical benefits, and where are denials or delays occurring?
• How does the drug compare with the established standard of care and other prompt-supplied competitors on efficacy, safety, access, and price?
• Is there a companion diagnostic required (i.e., PD-L1 expression test before prescribing)?

Step 2: Market assessment

Step 3: Pricing and market access diagnosis

If sales are 40% below forecast, useful hypotheses to test in a biotech launch include:

1. Restrictive medical policy or site-of-care rules: coverage criteria, coding, provider reimbursement, or infusion-site requirements make the product harder to start
2. Prior-authorization burden: documentation and appeal requirements slow time to treatment and create abandonment
3. Evidence gap: payers or providers do not see enough comparative clinical, economic, or real-world evidence to change established treatment behavior

Step 4: Commercial model gaps

• Is the salesforce appropriately sized for oncology (smaller, specialist-focused)?
• Are medical science liaisons (MSLs) engaging with the right academic medical centers?
• Is there a robust patient services program helping patients navigate prior authorization?

Step 5: Recommendations

Immediate (0–3 months): Analyze approval, denial, appeal, time-to-treatment, site-of-care, and provider-reimbursement data by payer. Fix the operational access failures first, then address the specific coverage-policy or evidence objection each payer raises. Expand patient services where affordability or navigation is causing abandonment.

Medium-term (3–12 months): Build comparative real-world and economic evidence against the relevant standard of care, then use it in medical-policy reviews, health-technology discussions, and provider education. The exact evidence plan depends on the label, endpoint, available data, and objections found in the case.

Long-term: Evaluate a biomarker-defined first-line label expansion. It may expand the eligible population, but it also enters a highly competitive treatment setting and requires a credible clinical-development and differentiation plan.

Illustrative case assumptions: Suppose the prompt gives 10,000 eligible patients, a 15% incremental treated share after access improvements, and $150,000 in annual net revenue per treated patient. That is 1,500 incremental patients and $225 million in annual net revenue before persistence, ramp, gross-to-net, and capacity adjustments. These are case inputs, not market facts.

Common Mistakes in Life Sciences Cases

1. Treating the FDA process as a black box. Saying "the drug gets approved and then you launch" misses the commercial preparation that may begin during clinical development. The sequence and timing depend on the asset, indication, evidence plan, regulatory path, and company.

2. Ignoring access dynamics. Assuming that physician recommendation alone drives use misses coverage policy, prior authorization, benefit design, site of care, provider economics, and patient affordability. Apply only the mechanisms relevant to the product in the prompt.

3. Using generic market sizing without understanding patient identification. A pharma market sizing must account for diagnosed vs. undiagnosed patients, treatment-eligible vs. non-eligible subsets, and patient identification rates. Not all patients in the "addressable" population are actually treated.

4. Conflating WAC and net price. WAC is the list price, while realized net price can differ after rebates, discounts, and other concessions. Do not assume one rebate percentage across therapeutic areas or contracts; ask for the case data.

5. Missing the biosimilar/generic timeline. If the drug being launched is a biologic with LOE in 5 years, that changes the commercial forecast horizon and NPV calculation fundamentally.

Readiness-Based Prep Plan for Life Sciences Candidates

Stage 1: Industry foundation

• Read Hacking the Case Interview's life sciences guide end-to-end
• Study FDA regulatory pathways: IND → Phase I → Phase II → Phase III → NDA/BLA → approval
• Learn the difference between pharmacy-benefit and medical-benefit access, including PBMs, formularies, prior authorization, site of care, and provider reimbursement
• Review pharma case interview examples and healthcare case interview prep

Stage 2: Core frameworks

• Practice the 4-part drug launch structure (market, pricing, access, commercial)
• Learn rNPV mechanics for pipeline/M&A cases
• Practice medical device market sizing with procedure volume data
• Review the market sizing framework and profitability framework for adaptation to life sciences

Stage 3: Case practice with terminology

• Solve fresh drug-launch cases until you can tailor the market, pricing, access, and commercial-model structure to the evidence
• Practice market-access cases across different channels, such as a retail pharmacy product and a physician-administered therapy, until you can explain why the channel changes the analysis
• Complete M&A or due-diligence practice with rNPV framing when the prompt includes clinical-development risk
• Run one Road to Offer case rep and debrief whether your recommendation connected clinical evidence, payer access, and commercial execution
• Review the ZS Associates case interview guide and L.E.K.-specific case format notes

Stage 4: Integrated rehearsal and firm-specific prep

• Run full mock interviews with a partner using the case interview practice partner guide until your recurring structure, quantitative, and synthesis errors stabilize
• Review McKinsey's public GlobaPharm case (available on McKinsey's careers page), an excellent life sciences case with HEOR and market access elements
• Prepare evidence-rich behavioral stories relevant to the role, such as managing complexity, working across payer/provider/patient stakeholders, and making data-driven decisions
• Study Huron consulting case interview guide for healthcare operations case types

Execution checklist

• ✓

  Can explain FDA phases I/II/III and NDA/BLA process. Basic regulatory fluency helps when the prompt depends on development stage or approval timing

• ✓

  Distinguish pharmacy-benefit from medical-benefit access. The channel determines whether PBM tiers, medical policy, provider reimbursement, or site of care drives the answer

• ✓

  Practiced an adaptable drug-launch structure with quantified examples. Market, pricing, access, and commercial-model buckets are a useful starting point when tailored to the prompt

• ✓

  Know key firms: L.E.K., ZS Associates, Huron, IQVIA, Simon-Kucher. Each firm has a different focus within life sciences; knowing the firm's niche shapes your case approach

• ✓

  Can explain rNPV vs. standard NPV and when to use each. rNPV adds development-stage probability when the case involves clinical risk

• ✓

  Prepared HEOR definition and why payers use this evidence. HEOR is relevant when a market-access prompt asks how value will be demonstrated

Related Guides

• Pharma Case Interview Guide
• Healthcare Case Interview Guide
• Pricing Strategy Cases: drug pricing, payer negotiations, and value-based contracts are core to life sciences commercial strategy
• PE Due Diligence Framework: the diligence layer for pipeline and asset M&A
• Market Sizing Framework
• Unit Economics Framework

Sources (reviewed July 20, 2026)

1. Life Sciences Consulting Case Interview: Complete Guide (Hacking the Case Interview)
2. ZS Case Interview: The Complete Prep Guide 2026 (Hacking the Case Interview)
3. L.E.K. Consulting Life Science Associate Interview Questions (Glassdoor)
4. Pharma Case Interview Practice (ZS Associates)
5. PBMs, Formularies, and Rebates: What Investors Should Know (DrugPatentWatch)
6. Patent Cliff Playbook: Formulary Management in the Age of Generic Entry (DrugPatentWatch)
7. Valuing Pharmaceutical Assets: When to Use NPV vs rNPV (Alacrita)
8. Pharma Case Interview Example (Management Consulted)
9. Managing the Pharmacy Benefit: The Formulary System (PMC)