America’s pharma manufacturing sector has been booming, drawing overseas executives to new opportunities in the U.S.. But for academics and researchers, the reverse is underway, with slashed budgets and research programs prompting scientists to seek career opportunities abroad.
“You have these patterns going in different directions,” said David Molén, a managing director in the global healthcare and life sciences practice at the executive search firm WittKieffer.
As investments, incentives and priorities shift, pharma’s job market landscape is being reformed, creating an unclear picture of what the long-term impact will be on the industry.
“It's difficult to determine exactly how that might play out,” Molén said.
The draw of U.S. investments
Pharma’s U.S. manufacturing investments skyrocketed in 2025, with major companies promising more than $370 billion combined over the next five years, according to a market trend report from DPR Construction.
As those dollar amounts increase, European life science leaders are sounding the alarm about how it could put the continent at a competitive disadvantage.
“The U.S. now leads Europe on every investor metric from availability of capital, intellectual property, speed of approval to rewards for innovation,” the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations warned last year. “In addition to the uncertainty created by the threat of tariffs, there is little incentive to invest in the EU and significant drivers to relocate to the U.S.”
As companies relocate, talent is also on the move.
“Top-level executives follow their companies,” Molén said. “If you look at where global pharma companies are seeking to invest, it’s in the U.S.”
While “personal views” about politics might give executives pause for relocating to the U.S., many of them are still packing their bags, Molén said.
“They want to be at the center of the universe. They want to be near the mothership because that's where things happen. And if the mothership is in the U.S., and that's where they're going to go,” he said. “There are a lot of people talking about, on a personal level, whether they prefer or won’t prefer going to the U.S. [But] that is upset by the fact that people go there anyway.”
The exodus among scientists
On the other end of the spectrum, more academics and researchers are looking for opportunities to leave the U.S.
“There's a significant increase in American Ph.D. students and senior research scientists, as their funding has been cut, making the move,” said Natalie Derry, a managing partner and practice leader at WittKieffer.
This exodus is no longer theoretical. A year ago, 75% of U.S. scientists polled by the journal Nature said they were considering leaving the country, but now many are taking concrete action.
“We are seeing people relocate. We've had people who have signed contracts,” Derry said. “We've got others in negotiations of contracts. We've had a significant increase in the amount of people from the U.S. applying for roles.”
Early-career grants applicants from the U.S. rose from 60 in 2024 to 169 in 2026, the European Research Council reported. The number of more senior researcher applicants from the U.S. rose from 23 to 114 during the same time.
While U.S. scientists are being lured by incentive campaigns and funding from Europe, the U.K., and Canada, lower salaries are still a deterrent for some, especially more senior researchers not willing to take a pay cut in the later stages of their careers, Derry said.
“Salaries in the U.S. are traditionally a lot higher than most countries around the world,” she noted. “Typically to make a move to the U.K., Europe, possibly Australia, or parts of Southeast Asia, you would take a pay cut. Sometimes it's not significant. Sometimes it can be quite significant. But the research funding opportunity is attractive, which is making some people overlook this and make the move.”
A pending brain drain?
In addition to luring U.S. scientists, “Europe and the U.K. in particular” are taking steps to make their economies and regulatory landscape more appealing and competitive for life sciences companies, Molén said.
But the U.S. still has a bigger “appetite for risk,” especially when it comes to backing early-stage companies, as well as faster-moving and nimbler regulatory and funding processes.
On the research side, the “early career research scientist exodus from the U.S.” could eventually set up an innovation gap, Derry said.
“One could say there is going to be a brain drain and a gap in the market in terms of research and academia,” she said.
