Flexing on the Competition? Smaller Companies Get Higher Marks for Flexibility

When it comes to flexibility and remote work, small biopharmas have an edge over their larger competitors in the minds of many pharma and biotech professionals, according to recent BioSpace findings.

Earlier this month, BioSpace announced its 2025 Best Places to Work winners, chosen based on input from over 3,600 life sciences professionals. While those respondents highly rated small and large employers’ flexibility and remote work options, smaller companies had a higher average score on a 1 to 10 rating scale—8.71 compared to 7.9.

In addition, in a LinkedIn poll this month on that topic, 71% of respondents said in their experience, smaller biopharmas have the better options.

That said, it’s important to note that not every small company offers better flexibility, with some businesses requiring people to be on site. What’s more, the overall percentage of biopharmas with remote positions is small, according to job postings on the BioSpace website. As of Nov. 20, just 5.3% of those roles were designated as “working from home,” indicating that remote work is not the norm in the industry.

Biopharmas’ flexibility varies depending on their circumstances, according to Greg Clouse, recruitment manager at BioSpace. He noted that at large companies, it can hinge on the job itself. For example, he said, it’s easier for regulatory professionals, senior leaders and tech writers to be remote than lab workers.

At very small companies without a lab or production facility, Clouse noted, everyone can be remote, but as those businesses grow, that can change.

“Once you actually start talking about companies with labs and production floors, those folks, if they’re smaller, they need you there to get the product going and get the concept going and get the work done,” he said.

Abhiram, who asked BioSpace to use his first name only, had that kind of experience. He told BioSpace that when he was at a small biotech, he had to be in the office every day as the company worked to deliver results and secure investor funding. It was difficult to take time away for medical appointments, so he’d take days off for those.

Abhiram said he’s had better flexibility and remote options at large biopharmas. He shared that at his current large employer, most functions, including his, can work remotely two days a week and have flexible hours. He now goes to medical appointments and even works out during the workday.

As to why large biopharmas can offer more flexibility, Abhiram said that based on his experience, those businesses have more people to do the work. So, if something must be done on site, such as sending or receiving shipments, there’s always somebody there to do that. It was different at the small biotech where he previously worked.

“It felt like everyone had to be hands on deck all the time,” Abhiram said. “There were not as many people to do those things. So, the site presence was very important.”

Victoria, who asked BioSpace to use her first name only, has had the opposite experience. Based on working at small and large biotechs, she told BioSpace she’s found better flexibility and remote options at the smaller company where she works now.

When she worked at two large biotechs, Victoria shared that she had to go to the office every day. She noted that at one of those jobs, she had a two-hour commute to work—one hour each way—that left her exhausted.

“When I stopped having that commute, I realized how much it was affecting me, because I was falling asleep on the couch because just driving in traffic is really hard, I think, on you mentally because you have to be very alert,” Victoria said.

Now at a small biotech, she’s 100% remote, as are all employees there. Teams sometimes meet in person at the company’s office, but how often depends on the team itself.

Working from home has become so important to Victoria that she said she’ll seek 100% remote work at her next employer as well.

“I’ve kind of stopped looking at the big companies, honestly, because so many of them are making you just go in,” she said.

To take a closer look at biopharmas’ flexibility and remote work options, BioSpace spoke to executives at the small and large Best Places to Work winners that were most highly rated in that area: Apogee Therapeutics (9.78) and Insmed (9.6).

At Apogee, 92% of its nearly 200 employees are remote, according to Emily Cox, vice president and head of people at the Waltham, Massachusetts–based clinical-stage biotech. The remaining 8% of staff are lab-based and work at a space the company rents from SmartLabs in the Boston Seaport area.

While Apogee is primarily remote, employees do interact in person. The biotech meets as a full company two to three times per year for one week each time, Cox told BioSpace. She said these gatherings allow staff to build deeper relationships, learn about the latest Apogee business updates and engage in professional development. The company also encourages individual teams to meet in person as needed.

Remote work is a core part of Apogee’s people strategy, according to Cox, who noted that flexible work arrangements are a key factor in attracting and retaining diverse talent, particularly women.

“Being remote has really enabled us to tap into a wider talent pool and ensure that we’re attracting the best people and that we aren’t constrained to a single geography,” she said. “And we spent a lot of time, especially early on, understanding both the benefits of remote work as well as the potential disadvantages so that we could proactively mitigate those and really lean into the advantages.”

At Insmed, employees—role dependent—choose where and when they work, said Nicole Schaeffer, chief people strategy officer at the Bridgewater, New Jersey–based biopharma. Therefore, the company’s nearly 1,200 employees globally include hybrid and remote staff as well as people who come to the office for certain tasks, such as lab workers to run experiments.

Whatever their work arrangement, all employees must gather in person for purposeful events during the year, such as team meetings, Schaeffer told BioSpace. She said remote workers only need to get together two to three times annually.

This flexible approach allows Insmed to bring in talent it may not otherwise be able to tap, according to Schaeffer. The biopharma isn’t limited to candidates who live near the locations it’s hiring for.

Also noteworthy: Schaeffer said Insmed has low turnover—less than 10% globally this year—and attributed it largely to the flexible work arrangements.

“A lot of it has to do with the fact that we’ve kept this approach from during COVID and beyond where we asked people to come to the office as it was meaningful, useful and appropriate versus being a nine-to-five ‘You must be in the office’ kind of culture,” she said.

For companies that offer flexible work arrangements, hybrid work is more common than being 100% remote, according to Clouse. Biopharma professionals who appreciate hybrid work include Jill Drury, a medical director at Chicago-based AbbVie.

Drury told BioSpace that flexibility is important to her as a working mother and contrasted it with her experience working eight- to 12-hour days at a hospital, sometimes without a bathroom break. Now, she’s at a company where people typically go to the office two to three days a week, although Drury said that varies by role, function and sometimes manager.

As much as Drury appreciates working from home, she also likes being at the office.

“I really believe in the value of face-to-face interaction,” she said. “And I think the opportunity to connect with people—to smile, to laugh—is so much more authentic in person than any form of virtual communication we can substitute it with.”

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