How Banks Organize Healthcare Coverage

Introduction

Understanding how a healthcare group is structured is surprisingly important for candidates. It shapes who you network with, what questions you get asked in interviews, and what your day-to-day experience looks like as an analyst. A healthcare group at Goldman Sachs covers different companies and runs different deal types than one at Piper Sandler, and even within the same bank, the pharma/biotech team operates differently from the services team. Knowing these organizational dynamics helps you have more informed conversations with bankers and shows interviewers that you understand the business beyond the textbook level.

At bulge bracket and elite boutique banks, healthcare groups typically include 30-60+ professionals spanning MDs, directors, VPs, associates, and analysts. The group is divided into sub-sector coverage teams that align with the five major verticals: Pharmaceuticals & Biotech, Medical Devices & MedTech, Healthcare Services, and Life Sciences Tools & Diagnostics. Some banks combine pharma and biotech into one team; others keep them separate if deal flow justifies it.

Coverage Banker

A banker assigned to maintain relationships with specific companies or within a specific industry vertical. Coverage bankers are responsible for origination (winning mandates from clients) and serve as the primary client contact. They bring deep sector expertise and coordinate with product specialists (ECM, DCM, Leveraged Finance, M&A) when a client needs a specific transaction executed.

Senior bankers (MDs and Directors) are almost always sub-sector specialists. An MD covering pharma/biotech will have spent years building relationships with CFOs and corporate development teams at companies like Pfizer, Amgen, or Regeneron. Their deal origination depends on deep, trusted relationships within their vertical, and they are unlikely to cross over to services or medtech coverage.

Junior bankers (analysts and associates) have more flexibility. At larger banks, analysts are typically staffed across the full healthcare group rather than locked into a single sub-sector. Over a two-year program, an analyst might build an rNPV model for a biotech sell-side, run comps for a medtech tuck-in acquisition, and create a CIM for a PE-backed healthcare services platform exit. This cross-exposure is one of the benefits of healthcare IB: you develop breadth across the sector before specializing later in your career.

Healthcare coverage bankers do not execute deals alone. When a client needs a specific transaction, the coverage team partners with the relevant product group:

The coverage banker's role in this dynamic is to own the client relationship and provide sector expertise, while the product specialist brings transaction-specific execution capability. In practice, this means the healthcare analyst or associate often works on two parallel workstreams: coverage-driven work (pitchbooks, industry research, client updates) and live deal execution alongside product group colleagues.

At different bank types, this structure varies significantly. Healthcare-specialist boutiques like Leerink Partners or Piper Sandler may have less formal separation between coverage and product because their entire firm is healthcare-focused. Middle-market banks may have smaller healthcare teams where analysts cover multiple sub-sectors by necessity. The next article explores how bank type affects your healthcare IB experience.