Module 07 · Core curriculum
Selling in life sciences & health tech (UK)
How the NHS and pharma actually buy — procurement, evidence, regulation.
What you’ll learn
- Why healthcare and life-science selling is structurally different from ordinary B2B software sales — and why that difference favours the prepared.
- A working map of the NHS as a customer: the organisations, who holds money, and who sits around the table in a real deal.
- The procurement routes (frameworks, tenders, direct awards) and compliance gates (DTAC, DSPT, DCB0129/0160, UKCA/CE) every NHS-facing seller must discuss fluently.
- The evidence ladder healthtech deals climb, why pilots stall, and what makes them convert.
- How pharma/biotech selling differs: the R&D organisation, GxP and validation, and what CDMO/CRO business development actually involves.
- The distinct worlds of lab consumables/instrument sales and pharma field sales — enough to hold your own in interviews for territory account-management and therapy-specialist roles.
- How to build domain credibility without sector experience — the kinds of assets that work, and how to wield them without overclaiming.