- Novartis achieved 100% uptake of AI use by prioritising ethical guardrails
- AbbVie’s Compliance by Design saw over 80% of staff report positive change
- Sandoz Australia is operationalising kindness as a hard-skill strategy for agility
Way back in 1916, the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (now CSL) was first set up in Melbourne to service a nation that was completely cut off from medical supplies by war. It was a scrappy move, but it founded an industry now worth over $9 billion annually. But, while Australian biotech is known the world over for its research and development output, it’s also facing a talent crisis that impressive amounts of seeding money alone cannot solve.
You can buy a centrifuge. You can lease a Class A lab in Parkville or Macquarie Park. But you cannot buy the kind of discretionary effort required to push a molecule through Phase III trials. Despite the sector’s prestige, the churn rate in Australian life sciences is creeping up because the highly educated workforce they are trying to attract, many of whom just spent a decade in university, can smell a transactional workplace from the lobby.
To understand what makes for a top biotech employer we looked at the data from thousands of employee surveys in the industry and commissioned Building Trust in a Regulated Industry, which looked under the hood of Australia’s heavy hitters like Novartis, Sandoz, Hologic, and AbbVie. What we found was a rigorous application of empathy, operational clarity, and purpose. Here is how the best in the business are doing it.
1. Culture built intentionally
For most of living memory, kindness in business has been viewed as unserious and generally irrelevant to innovation. In a high-stakes environment where one decimal point error can cost millions or endanger lives, fear is the enemy of profit. If your team is worried about looking stupid, they’re statistically unlikely to report a near miss. If they fear a manager, they won’t challenge a flawed hypothesis.
A global leader in generic and biosimilar pharmaceuticals, Sandoz Australia earned the number one spot on Australia’s Best Workplaces™ in Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals for 2025 in large part because of their Kind Leadership Accreditation program.
An initiative about creating the psychological safety required for speed, explains Communications Lead Kira Boss. “In a highly regulated, fast-moving industry, psychological safety and human connection are essential for agility and innovation.”
By creating a culture where staff genuinely feel safe to challenge respectfully, Sandoz found a direct correlation to faster problem-solving. This is the often-paraphrased principal that culture isn’t a slide deck, but what you let people get away with. By making kindness a competency that is measured and accredited, Sandoz removed the friction of fear.
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2. Identify the Constraint, Remove the Constraint
The biggest complaint from talent in the pharma sector is the red tape tax. It’s the feeling that 40 per cent of their week is spent ticking boxes rather than doing the work they were hired to do. Regulatory compliance is non-negotiable, but how you handle that compliance determines whether you attract innovators or job-huggers.
Research and development firm AbbVie Pty Ltd tackled this head-on with a philosophy they call compliance by design, treating regulation as a design constraint like gravity in architecture. They empowered teams with targeted training and clear guidelines to make flexible decisions within the safety rails.
A concrete example is their new platform, MAP, which came from employee feedback about the misery of compliance operations. By listening to the ground floor, they streamlined the process to reduce double handling. The response was swift. “The result saw over 80 per cent of employees experiencing a positive change and improved engagement,” says AbbVie’s Development Manager for ANZ, Joanna Simmons.
This is critical for pharma talent acquisition in Australia; all top talent wants to know that you will clear the runway for them. If your internal processes are archaic, your innovative employer branding looks insincere. Top companies continually audit internal bureaucracy, and if a legacy process exists solely to tick a box rather than ensure patient safety, they pull the pin.
3. Giving people the tools to innovate
At by late 2025, life sciences organisations are split between cautious, heavily governed generative AI adoption, driven by IP, data privacy and regulatory risk, and more aggressive experimentation aimed at speed and innovation.
Novartis Australia took a third path of total saturation with deep education. Instead of restricting access to a chosen few, they gave Copilot access to 100 per cent of their associates in Australia and New Zealand. Director at Novartis, Clare Kinsella notes that every associate received “introductory and ethical training to set the guardrails.” This ties back to the growth mindset pillar of their culture.
By running practical sessions where staff could experiment and fail safely, they demystified the technology. AI in biotech workplaces is primarily about removing the administrative drudgery from the commercial and operational teams so they can focus on high-value work. “We’ve also invested in and supported broader AI usage and adoption with clear use cases that have delivered significant value,” says Kinsella.
4. Connecting the Micro to the Macro
Hologic and Servier, number two and three respectively on Australia’s Best Workplaces™ in Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals list for 2025, understand a fundamental truth about human psychology which is, we need to know that our hard work has meaning. In a lab, or a spreadsheets-heavy commercial role, it is easy to lose the thread. You forget that the slide deck you are formatting could actually part of a chain that ends with a person surviving cancer.
Hologic keeps this connection alive through relentless communication. HR Business Partner from Hologic Kelly Lawrence believes that the companies monthly town halls aren’t just business updates but are genuine celebrations of impact. “When we take care of our people, they take care of our customers, and in turn, our customers help create a world that better supports and cares for women’s health.”
Novartis takes a similar approach by inviting patient advocacy groups into the building. “By regularly inviting patient advocacy groups and patients to share their stories directly with our associates, we remind ourselves of the impactful work that we do,” says Clare Kinsella. It is one thing to pin a mission statement up in the breakroom, but it’s another thing entirely to look a patient in the eye who is alive because of the work you did on a Tuesday afternoon three years ago.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the key drivers for pharma talent attraction in Australia in 2025?
The data shows a shift away from salary as the sole driver. Top talent is prioritising three things: operational efficiency of less bureaucracy, genuine flexibility like gender-neutral parental leave and hybrid options, and technological enablement. Candidates are asking specific questions about tech stacks and decision-making speed during interviews.
How does workplace culture impact agility in biotech?
Biotech is high-risk. A punitive culture creates risk aversion, which stalls agility. As seen with Sandoz, a culture of kindness or psychological safety allows employees to report errors faster and pivot strategies without fear of retribution.
Is AI replacing jobs in Australian biotech workplaces?
Currently, AI is not replacing roles so much as augmenting them. Companies like Novartis are using AI in biotech workplaces to remove administrative burdens like scheduling, data entry, basic analysis, allowing high-value staff to focus on strategy and science. The talent market is favouring candidates who are AI-literate.
How do you measure purpose in a corporate environment?
You measure it by proximity to the patient. Top employers track how often non-clinical staff interact with patient stories or advocacy groups. If your finance team can’t explain how their spreadsheet helps a patient, your purpose connection is broken.
