Most VP job descriptions in life sciences read like wish lists, pointing out requirements like “strategic thinker” and “cross-functional leader.” But they rarely explain how to become a VP in life sciences or what the role practically involves once you’re in it.
At headcount AG, we place VP-level leaders across pharma, biotech, and medtech in Switzerland and the DACH region. These aren’t C-suite roles, but they’re business-critical, including VP of Medical Affairs, Head of Market Access, VP of Regulatory Strategy, and more.
These are the people who connect the company vision to execution.
To understand what separates strong VPs from average ones, our General Manager, Maurice Thornton, sat down with six Vice Presidents and one CEO for our Leadership Lab Podcast. The goal? Figure out what VP-level performance looks like in 2026.
In this article:
- What does a VP in life sciences do?
- headcount AG: Recruitment for the life sciences industry
- How to become a VP in life sciences: 6 essential skills
- What no one tells you about becoming a VP in life sciences
- The future VP skillset: AI can’t beat staying human in high-stakes environments
- Looking to advance to VP or hire VP-level talent in life sciences?
What does a VP in life sciences do?
VPs in life sciences make key decisions that affect timelines, budgets, and teams. On a typical day, that often means aligning stakeholders who don’t report to them, prioritising initiatives when resources are limited, and making calls with incomplete information.
The VP role sits between strategy and execution.
VPs manage across functions, translating executive priorities into operational plans and making sure that those plans work. Senior VPs typically oversee multiple VPs and operate closer to the C-suite, but VPs are where strategic decisions meet real-world constraints.
Common VP roles in life sciences include:
- VP of Clinical Development
- VP of Quality Assurance
- VP of Commercial Operations
- VP of Pharmacovigilance
- VP of Manufacturing
- VP of Regulatory Affairs
- VP of Medical Affairs
- VP of Business Development
- VP of Research and Development
- VP of Market Access
These roles are make-or-break because they determine whether the company can execute its strategy without losing credibility with regulators or customers. They’re not C-level, but all life science companies heavily depend on them.
According to headcount’s data, VP-level roles in life sciences typically pay between CHF 250,000 and up to CHF 500,000, depending on company size, therapeutic area, and years of experience.
Directors start around CHF 180,000 and earn up to CHF 250,000. Senior directors have starting salaries of around CHF 240,000 and CHF 350,000.
Learn more about the life science executive search.
headcount AG: Recruitment for the life sciences industry
At headcount AG, we’ve worked with hundreds of leaders across pharma, biotech, and medtech in Switzerland and the DACH region.
The insights in this article come from our Leadership Lab Podcast, where we interview executives about leadership transitions, navigating matrixed organizations, and what separates high performers from the rest.
listen to our podcast leadership lab
How to become a VP in life sciences: 6 essential skills
1. Prioritise customer impact over personal visibility
Strong VPs measure their success by outcomes, not recognition.
They focus on decisions that improve patient access, speed up clinical timelines, or strengthen regulatory positioning. These are the metrics that matter to customers and the business, not just internal stakeholders.
This often means stepping back when the team should own the win. VPs who constantly position themselves at the center of every success create bottlenecks and kill momentum.
The best life science VPs work behind the scenes, building productive relationships and clearing obstacles.
Every decision should ultimately connect to the end user. If you’re leading market access, that means asking whether your pricing strategy gets the drug to patients who need it. If you’re in clinical development, it means asking whether your trial design will produce data that regulators and payers can trust.
“As a VP, if your decisions don’t map back to customer outcomes, you’re playing the wrong game.”
2. Anticipate challenges and simplify strateg
VPs need to see problems before they become crises. That can mean tracking:
- Life science industry trends
- What regulators are signalling
- What your competitors are doing
- Where your team might need support or hit capacity limits
Cultivating their ‘anticipation skill’ allows life science VPs to prepare instead of react.
Ultimately, it boils down to one thing: knowing how to see the bigger picture.
To be able to anticipate as a VP, you need to know how to see the overarching strategy clearly. The strongest VPs can summarise what the company is trying to accomplish in one sentence—not the polished version from the board deck, but the version that makes sense to someone on the manufacturing floor or in a regional office.
“If you can explain your company’s strategy in one sentence at the coffee machine, you’re 90% of the way there.”
This applies to how you talk about your own experience, too. Candidates who walk through their entire career history, starting from their first job out of university, miss the point. VPs understand relevance and edit ruthlessly.
“Strategic leaders are the ones who simplify when everyone else is complicating.”
3. Lead cross-functional teams without direct authority
In matrixed life sciences organisations, VPs rarely control all the people they need to get work done. You’ll depend on regulatory teams that report to someone else, manufacturing groups with different priorities, and commercial teams focused on different timelines.
This means that influence matters more than hierarchy.
Strong VPs align—they listen, gather data, and translate company goals into terms that matter to each stakeholder.
VPs with deep understanding and strong communication skills can figure out what motivates the head of quality, the regional medical director, and the finance lead, and then frame decisions in ways that make sense to all three.
“Titles don’t lead teams. Trust does.”
Managing cross-functional teams means that you can’t micromanage everything or tell everyone what to do. Instead, you’ll need to read the room and bridge gaps between departments using strong interpersonal skills.
4. Make high-stakes decisions with incomplete data
VPs rarely have perfect information or unlimited time. But they still need to decide, and they need to own those decisions when things go wrong. This is where resilience comes in.
Strong VPs stay calm when plans fall apart and reset quickly when priorities have to shift.
This also means that when a decision doesn’t work out, they stand by it, explain their reasoning, and incorporate feedback without deflecting blame. To work effectively, VPs need to function at the intersection of high-stakes decision-making and accountability.
“You won’t always have time. You won’t always have the data.”
5. Build and retain top-performing teams
Strong VPs grow talent. They hire people smarter than them and don’t feel threatened when those people outperform them. Mentoring and building relationships are an extremely important part of the job.
“If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’ve hired wrong.”
Succession planning is a current KPI. If you’re a VP and you don’t have someone on your team ready to step into your role, you’ve built a dependency instead of a team.
The best VPs? They’re meticulous talent managers.
High performers want to work for them because they know they’ll learn, grow, and get great opportunities they wouldn’t get elsewhere. In fact, when these VPs move to new companies, parts of their teams often follow because people trust their leadership.
6. Learn from failures and career detours
The most respected VPs have experience that includes setbacks. They’ve seen projects fail and taken on things that didn’t work out, but what matters is how they talk about those moments.
Strong VPs own their failures.
As a VP, you have to be able to explain what went wrong, what you learned, and how it changed your approach. If you skip over the rough parts or blame external factors without extracting useful insight, it’ll be hard to advance.
“So, what was a time you had to leave your ego at the door?”
When life science recruiters ask this question, the best candidates share real stories, such as moments when they made the wrong call or had to backtrack in front of their team. These moments reveal judgment, humility, and the ability to learn under pressure. They are a part of your proven track record, even when things didn’t work out as planned.
What no one tells you about becoming a VP in life sciences
Every VP we spoke to had at least one major career detour—sometimes by choice, and sometimes forced by circumstances. But those detours became the most important learning experiences they had.
A clean, upward trajectory looks good on LinkedIn, and promotions from Medical Science Liaison to Regional Medical Director to Executive Medical Director signal talent. Companies recognise that.
But life sciences careers rarely follow straight lines.
The VPs who handle these disruptions well use them to develop skills they wouldn’t have built otherwise. The sideways step, the step down, the role that wasn’t part of the plan—these often matter more than the straightforward promotions.
The future VP skillset: AI can’t beat staying human in high-stakes environments
AI is changing how life sciences teams operate, but it’s making human judgment more valuable, not less. The next generation of VPs will need to combine digital fluency with the ability to read people, manage ambiguity, and make ethical calls when the data points in multiple directions.
Future VPs will need to interpret AI-generated insights without blindly following them.
It’s important to know when to trust the algorithm, but it’s even more important to strategise when to override it based on context that the system can’t see. No machine will ever be able to fully replace the human’s sharp business acumen.
Leadership is also becoming more relational as automation handles routine decisions. VPs who know how to build trust, navigate cultural differences, and keep teams aligned during uncertainty will have an advantage over those who rely purely on technical expertise.
Learn more about pharmaceutical automation and how it’s influenced by AI.
FAQs
What does it take to become a VP in life sciences?
A: To grow to a VP position in life sciences, you need a combination of technical expertise, leadership experience, and the ability to manage across functions without direct authority. Key skills include making decisions with incomplete data, building high-performing teams, prioritizing customer impact over visibility, and learning from failures. Most VPs have 10 to 15 years of experience in the industry and a demonstrated ability to deliver results under pressure.
What does a VP in life sciences do on a day-to-day basis?
A: VPs in life sciences align cross-functional stakeholders, prioritize strategic initiatives, make high-impact decisions with limited information, and make sure that execution stays connected to business outcomes. The role involves managing up to executives, across to peers in other departments, and down to direct reports—often simultaneously.
How long does it take to become a VP in life sciences?
A: Most VPs reach the role after 10 to 15 years in the industry, but this isn’t a universal rule. Fast-growing companies may promote faster than established organizations. Career detours, such as acquisitions, restructures, and lateral moves, often add time but also build the judgment and resilience that make someone ready for VP-level responsibility and thought leadership.
Do you need a PhD to become a VP in life sciences?
A: Not always. PhD credentials are common for VP roles in Medical Affairs, Clinical Development, and Research, where scientific credibility is important for interactions with KOLs and regulators. But VP roles in Commercial Operations, Market Access, Quality, and Manufacturing often prioritize industry experience and leadership ability, even with an advanced degree preferred.
Looking to advance to VP or hire VP-level talent in life sciences?
Whether you’re building your career toward VP leadership or searching for executives who can translate strategy into execution, headcount AG specializes in placing VP-level talent across pharma, biotech, and medtech in Switzerland and Europe.
Ready to take the next step? Explore life science career opportunities or find leadership talent.
