IQVIA

Riming Huang, Final year undergraduate, MBiochem in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, A mixture of in-person and remote working

Work Projects

The European Thought Leadership team at IQVIA is on the front line of providing the newest

insights on the pharma industry to both internal senior management teams and external

clients, based on analysis from databases exclusively owned by the company. People in the

team may focus on different specific areas, but overall the team covers a very wide range of

topics in the pharma industry. During the 10 weeks of internship, I created a COVID-19

therapeutic database and did extensive analysis based on it, performed horizontal and

vertical analysis on the results of a survey on health care providers preferences for detailing channels, and carried out comprehensive market analysis on cell/gene therapies. The

outputs of these projects were mainly the databases themselves, slide decks and analysis

articles, but they will be used in the future for communication and also potentially

whitepapers for publishing.

Besides, I also had the opportunity to help team members with their projects, e.g. updating

slides on AI in healthcare, producing analysis on pipeline products. Despite that most of the

internship was remote, I received numerous inductions and training sessions before I

worked extensively on the projects. For all projects I did, a team member was there

overseeing my progress, that is to say that person could always provide direct guidance

should I encounter any problems.

Other team members have also been really helpful in both answering trivial questions such

as Excel skills and more technical questions such as their personal views on areas in the

industry. Besides, the team also arranged video calls for me and a few senior members such

that I could get to know how IQVIA works as a whole company. The team has also provided

massive support on the social side of the internship: we had weekly meetings as well as

weekly online coffee chats, and in the occasions where I was in the London office the team

was always very eager to arrange group lunch and post-work pub events.

Daily Life

I was working mainly remotely for the 10 weeks, but I managed to be in the London office

once every two weeks when most of others in the team were also able to be present in

person. When working remotely, I was told explicitly to work from 9:30am to 17:30pm every

day with a one-hour lunch break this was because if I had questions during work, others in

the team could readily reply to my Teams messages. Most of the time I was sticking to that

daily schedule, but if I wanted to be flexible it was also possible.

The best thing I would say was that the team kept

emphasising on work-life balance, and everyone

was telling me at around 6pm every day I should

just put aside the laptop and not think about work.

Hence basically every day in the 10 weeks, I

switched on the work laptop at 9:30am, did the

work and participated in different video calls, and finished work at 5-6pm. Then I would do

some exercise and cook dinner, after which I would have different things to do or

entertainments.

Going to the London office has also been very exciting and something I would look forward

to. I decided to stay in Oxford and commute to London on those days since I was told before

the internship that I would not need to work in person very often due to COVID-19

restrictions. It would take a while for me to arrive at the office, but apparently working in

person allowed me to have a taste on the social side of work. Although most work was still

done using the work laptop, I could join many random discussions between others, and it

was always interesting to talk about where to go for lunch and after work together. It was

also very nice that I was in the office on my first day and last day of the internship, so I could

settle into the team quite quickly and also have the chance for a decent farewell.

Lasting Impressions

Everyone was professional and accessible, and my curious questions about the field could

always be answered in depth. The on-boarding process and also the working etiquette

everyone was sticking to were very professional yet not complicated. Team members were

also accessible in that they were always online and ready for questions or even calls during

working hours, sometimes even outside working hours.

Professional and accessible can also be used to describe the data that were available to me

even as an intern, and if I had longer time, I could have potentially learnt even more with

the data that I could access to. Friendly and considerate it has really been a pleasure to have

worked with the European Thought Leadership team at IQVIA. I was really warmly

welcomed on the first day of my internship, and I was arranged to meet everyone in the team by one-on-one meetings/calls. Although most of the discussions I had with the team

were about work, we also have some discussions on our careers or just personal

experiences or stories.

From the internship, I would say I not only

met a group of highly motivated

professionals in the healthcare industry, but

also a group of very nice friends who shared

lots of joy as well as guidance for my future.

After I finished the internship, the team even

bought me a shop voucher of my favourite

football club! From the above descriptions, it can clearly be seen that I have enjoyed the

internship very much.

I have gained a lot professionally from the internship, mainly from three perspectives: (1) I

have obtained a global overview of the pharma industry by doing my projects and analysing

data; (2) I have learnt some advanced skills in data analysis, not only tricks in using Excel,

but also the insight to draw conclusions from a chunk of numbers; (3) I understood the role

played by contract research organisations in pharma industry by talking to people from

other departments. Not to mention that I have also gained socially by meeting various

people from the team and the company.

I’m still exploring my career options, and this internship clearly tells me that a career as an analyst in the healthcare industry is prospective. This has confirmed that I will be able to do

well in this field (and now I have also gained some experience), so while I could not say in