Austin, TX · Competitive intelligence & strategy for the life sciencesEmail  ·  LinkedIn

Jai S. Bhakta.

Eight years turning clinical, market, and competitive evidence into recommendations senior leaders act on, across biopharma, medical devices, and diagnostics. Then I designed and directed the build of an AI platform doing the work with a rule: no evidence, no output.

VP, Healthcare and Life Sciences Business Development and Strategy · Jupiter Capital Management, 2025-present  ·  previously Eradigm Consulting 2022-24 and Decisive, Inc. 2020-22

Competitive intelligence · Market insights · Commercial evaluation · Corporate strategy · Corporate development · AI-enabled research

I. The briefing

I work at the point where science meets strategy: tracking assets, pipelines, and competitors across clinical, regulatory, and congress developments, then translating the signal into storylines leadership acts on.

The range runs from asset-level intelligence, a 24-month program on a single immunology asset through its out-licenseDecisive, 2020-22 · longitudinal monitoring, anti-OX40 asset, to enterprise questions of R&D productivity and capital allocation for top-tier pharmaEradigm, 2022-24 · competitive intelligence & corporate strategy, to commercial evaluation of licensing and partnership opportunities at an advisory and investment firmJupiter Capital Management, 2025 to present.

II. The platform

As an independent project, I designed and directed the build of a working competitive intelligence platform for life sciences. It retrieves evidence from live biomedical sources, structures it across nine analytical lenses per asset, and generates client-grade deliverables through a multi-agent pipeline.

Exhibit 1. The generation pipeline. Output halts at the gate when evidence is insufficient. Every identifier and figure is validated against retrieved sources before a deliverable ships.

I owned the architecture, the technical decisions, and the quality bar, directing implementation to specification under review. It is a working answer to the question every intelligence function is asking: how do you get AI speed without losing evidential trust?

3Live sources · openFDA, ClinicalTrials.gov, PubMed
9Analytical lenses per asset
0Claims ship without evidence · the gate halts generation instead
Exhibit 2. Platform vitals.

III. The practice

Competitive intelligence

Knowing the competitor before the market does.

  • Pipeline and in-line competitor tracking across clinical, regulatory, and commercial signals
  • Congress rapid-response operations: 40-plus KOL interviews per cycle, three flash readouts daily
  • CEO-level battle cards applied in earnings and investor preparation
  • Longitudinal asset monitoring programs, defined competitive sets, out-license tracking
  • Competitor archetype typologies and positioning readouts for leadership

Market insights and primary research

Signal from the people who decide.

  • KOL, HCP, and payer interview programs, 20-plus payer and HCP interviews run directly
  • Value and access signals distilled into insights informing global market-access decisions
  • Qualitative-to-quantitative synthesis: interview programs into scoring rubrics and frameworks
  • Market sizing and opportunity assessment across devices, biopharma, and diagnostics

Commercial evaluation and diligence

Go or no-go, with the reasoning shown.

  • Integrated commercial assessments and business cases for licensing and partnership
  • Strategic and commercial diligence: competitive position, IP, development-stage risk, path to market
  • Financial modeling as a strategic tool: DCF, comparables, risk-adjusted scenarios
  • Executive-ready investment memos and diligence packages for capital decisions

Corporate and portfolio strategy

Where the capital should go next.

  • Reverse-engineering R&D productivity: five causal drivers behind an industry conversion shift
  • Capital-allocation and portfolio-prioritization inputs for senior leadership
  • Corporate strategy frameworks built from 29 primary interviews across four competitor firms
  • Board-ready and executive materials, from fact base to storyline to so-what

AI-enabled intelligence systems

Building the tools, not only using them.

  • Designed and directed the build of a working AI competitive intelligence platform, detailed above
  • AI-enabled research workflows applied daily to accelerate monitoring and synthesis
  • Evaluation discipline for AI output: grounding, citation validation, multi-pass QC before anything ships

IV. The record

VP, Healthcare and Life Sciences Business Development and Strategy

Jupiter Capital Management, an advisory and investment firm · 2025 to present

  • Integrated commercial assessments and business cases for biotech and medical device opportunities, from market sizing and competitive positioning through go/no-go recommendations on licensing and partnership.
  • Strategic and commercial diligence across competitive positioning, IP, development-stage risk, and commercialization pathway, delivered as executive-ready investment memos.

Sabbatical

Following Eradigm's US office closure · 2024-25

  • Eradigm closed its US office in February 2024. The time went to Columbia Business School, Certificate in Business Excellence, Venture Capital Private Equity Program (non-degree, Nov 2024), and to a deliberate investment in health, before returning to an operating seat.

Senior Associate Consultant, Competitive Intelligence and Corporate Strategy

Eradigm Consulting · 2022-24

  • Reverse-engineered an industry improvement in candidate-to-blockbuster conversion for a top-pharma client, isolating five causal drivers to inform R&D capital-allocation strategy.
  • Managed a seven-member oncology insights team across ASCO, ESMO, and EHA, 40-plus KOL interviews per cycle, with three flash readouts daily driving real-time pivots in client CAR-T positioning.
  • Created a six-pillar corporate strategy framework from 29 primary interviews across four competitor firms.
  • Co-authored proposals securing six new projectsSix engagements, roughly $2.5M in combined value and mentored five-plus analysts on primary research and narrative craft.

Analyst, Competitive Intelligence and Market Insights

Decisive, Inc. · 2020-22

  • Ran a 24-month longitudinal intelligence program on an anti-OX40 atopic dermatitis asset, defining a JAK and IL-13 competitive set and tracking the asset through its out-license.
  • Drove a PD-L1 intravenous-to-subcutaneous formulation transition study during a competitor Phase II/III surge, compiling safety, device, and adoption signals steering client formulation strategy.
  • Conducted 20-plus payer and HCP interviews informing global market-access insights, and co-authored business development decks winning six engagementsSix engagements, roughly $1.7M in combined value.

The foundation

Applied life sciences, bench to boardroom · 2017-20

  • Medtronic Neurovascular capstoneKeck Graduate Institute, 2019-20: applied Lean Six Sigma to QC, calibration, and raw-material inspection for cleanroom manufacturing of balloon catheters, stents, and neurovascular devices.
  • City of Hope, Business Development InternJanuary to April 2020: competitive analysis, opportunity assessment, patient-flow analysis, and product positioning for select assets, with financial modeling on partnership deal evaluation.
  • NanoSens InnovationsAcquired by Cardea Bio, 2021: assessed the CRISPR and genome-editing industries and built market intelligence and product profiles for a dCas9 graphene biosensor, identifying gene-editing QC as an adjacent market.
  • UT Austin Clinical Neuroendocrinology Laboratory: undergraduate research in neuroendocrine signaling, where the science side of this work began.

V. Coverage

Therapeutic range: oncology, hematology, rare disease, immunology, dermatology, women's health, and vaccines, with medical devices and diagnostics from graduate training through current diligence work.

Platforms and tools: Citeline, Cortellis, AlphaSense, Trial Trove, Reuters Eikon, GlobalData. Executive reporting in Excel and PowerPoint. Working Python. English and Gujarati.

VI. Credentials

2024Columbia Business School · Certificate in Business Excellence, Venture Capital Private Equity Program (non-degree)
2020Keck Graduate Institute · Master of Business and Science, Applied Life Sciences, Medical Devices & Diagnostics concentration
2018The University of Texas at Austin · BSA, Biology

VII. Contact

The full dossier is a message away. For the resume, a platform walkthrough, or a conversation about intelligence and strategy work, reach out directly.

bhaktajai@gmail.com  ·  linkedin.com/in/bhaktajai