A recruiter and career coach discuss when and why some biotech and pharma professionals put a premium on health insurance benefits.
Biotech and pharma professionals may be more likely than employees in other industries to stay in jobs just for health insurance benefits, based on a BioSpace LinkedIn poll and West Health-Gallup Center joint study.
The new study found that 24% of U.S. workers are keeping their current roles despite wanting to move on because they’re afraid to lose their health insurance. That’s up from 16% in 2021. In contrast, a recent BioSpace poll found that 39% of respondents are sticking around in a biopharma job they’d rather leave so they can keep their insurance.
So-called “job lock” is increasing amid broader healthcare affordability challenges, according to Gallup. The organization noted that roughly half of Americans report difficulty consistently paying for necessary medical care or prescriptions. In addition, 51% are concerned about affording healthcare over the next 12 months, the highest level in five years.
For biopharma professionals who don’t have other positions lined up, health insurance is often a deciding factor in whether to leave a job, according to Bryan Blair, vice president of biotech and pharma recruiting at GQR Global Markets.
“People a lot of times can absorb a period of unemployment from a cost-of-living, day-to-day standpoint, but they might not necessarily be comfortable taking on not having health insurance,” he told BioSpace.
Blair added that biopharma professionals are well versed in healthcare and their own health, making them more forward thinking where insurance is concerned. As a result, he said, they’re more hesitant than people in other industries to go without it.
“That’s not really the attitude of people who work in biopharma,” Blair said.
He’s not alone in noting that health insurance benefits can influence whether biotech or pharma professionals stick around in their roles. Leigh Holcomb, CEO of Career Catalyst Edge, told BioSpace in an emailed response that she knows a few single mothers who stayed in biopharma jobs they wanted to leave just to keep their health insurance from changing. Those employees had children with ADHD, autism or other health conditions that required specialized medications and care, she said.
“When health insurance plans are changed, parents may suddenly find that their kid’s ADHD medication is not on the formulary or their physician is not on the preferred network,” explained Holcomb, who provides career coaching services to high-achieving women in life sciences.
For those who opt to leave biopharma positions without another role lined up, they may find the job market challenging, in part due to ongoing layoffs. During the first half of 2026, the number of employees affected by made or planned workforce cuts dipped just 2% year over year to 14,427, based on BioSpace tallies.
The role benefits play in accepting a job offer
The important of health insurance was noted in a survey of biopharma professionals late last year that informed the BioSpace 2026 U.S. Life Sciences Employment Outlook report. Asked what was most important to them in their next role, 58% of employed and 54% of unemployed respondents rated benefits as very important. Less than 1% of employed (0.5%) and unemployed (0.8%) participants rated them as not at all important.
However, “If they’re just going from company A to company B, that’s when it becomes much less consequential because a lot of times, you don’t even think about your healthcare benefits until you need them,” Blair said.
One circumstance that will cause biopharma professionals to heavily consider health insurance benefits when weighing employment offers, according to Blair, is if they have immediate family members with preexisting conditions or special needs. Many times, he added, those job seekers know they need to err toward roles at larger companies, which tend to provide better coverage at a lower monthly premium.
As to how health insurance coverage affects biopharma professionals’ decisions to move from a large pharma to a small biotech, Blair noted that it’s not necessarily a deciding factor.
“It usually gets used as a leverage point for trying to get a higher base salary,” he said.
*Layoff numbers exclude contract development and manufacturing organizations, contract research organizations, tools and services businesses and medical device firms. To tally the cuts, BioSpace compiles data for known workforce reductions. The number of employees affected is identified or estimated through confirmation from company officials as well as information in company press releases, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices, SEC filings and other media outlets’ reports.
Not all companies disclose downsizing, and some share only the percentage of staff affected. Some biopharmas provide total numbers retrospectively rather than disclosing individual workforce reductions as they happen.
