C-suite barometer 2026: life sciences & pharmaceuticals sector highlights

• 75of organisations have restructured teams to implement AI.
• 53of respondents have consolidated services offered in specific countries.
• 38plan to consolidate or offshore next year.

Our latest C‑suite barometer shows that 72% of leaders in the life sciences and pharmaceutical sector report revenue growth, though this represents a sharp 24‑point fall from 2025. Optimism has cooled too with this 14-point drop in leaders that have a positive growth outlook for 2026. In effect, leaders still expect progress, but they are beginning to rethink what normal looks like and their strategies.

Across the board, executives cite economic uncertainty and supply chain and procurement challenges as the dominant forces most likely to hold back growth. These obstacles are not new to the sector, but their persistence signals a deeper structural shift. What once appeared cyclical now increasingly feels systemic and it is this reality that is reshaping the priorities topping the C-suite agenda in this sector at pace.

Strategic agendas in the sector have widened rather than narrowed. Talent strategy tops the priority list, closely followed by supply‑chain resilience, operational optimisation, and adapting to competitive pressure, regulatory change and climate impacts. Notably, no single priority dominates – a clear indicator that leaders are seeing multidimensional risk and opportunity, rather than a singular strategic playing field. Complexity, in other words, is now the operating environment.

Technology transformation continues to sit at the centre of the sector’s environment. Almost half of executives say AI is having a major impact on their organisation, and three‑quarters have already restructured teams to implement AI‑driven models of work. While only a minority currently dedicate more than a fifth of their budget to AI, investment in automation, cyber security and data connectivity is accelerating, even as overall financial investment levels fall 12 points below those seen in 2025.

This change reflects a mindset of targeted innovation. Leaders are funnelling budgets into areas that enhance resilience, efficiency and strategic agility. AI is seen not as a miracle cure, but as a stabilising force that helps organisations adapt faster than the uncertainty around them.

Trade and tariff disruption remains another defining factor for 2026. It’s encouraging to see four in five leaders express confidence in their ability to manage tariff‑driven costs, yet the strategies being deployed tell a more nuanced story. Cost efficiencies, market diversification and operational retrenchment are now common levers. International expansion plans are subdued, with 53% of organisations now opting out of entering new markets this year. That being said, it’s a small margin (even by this sector’s standards) with the 45% that plan to expand to begin operating in at least one new country in the next five years.

The strongest indicator emerging from this year’s findings is a sector learning to operate, invest and grow amid uninterrupted external turbulence. Adaptability, and the institutional muscle required to maintain it, is becoming life science’s most valuable creation and currency.

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