Healthcare Survey Research & Pharma Insights Expert

Remote • Contract • United States • $140/hr

Mercor is hiring for this role as an independent contractor engagement. Work is remote and project based.

Mercor is partnering with a leading AI research organisation to engage experienced healthcare market research, survey methodology, and pharmaceutical insights professionals for an urgent research initiative to design and review physician and patient surveys. We are looking for professionals who have designed, programmed, fielded, reviewed, or advised on healthcare survey instruments, particularly research involving physicians, patients, or other healthcare professionals. The strongest candidates will combine rigorous survey-design expertise with familiarity with pharmaceutical research and specific therapeutic areas. However, candidates with exceptional depth in healthcare survey methodology are strongly encouraged to apply even if they are not therapeutic-area specialists.

Initial surveys will cover prostate cancer, ulcerative colitis, and migraine, with additional indications expected over time, including COPD and other disease areas.

What You’ll Do

• Design, review, and refine physician and patient survey instruments for pharmaceutical and healthcare research.

• Translate research objectives into clear, methodologically sound questionnaires.

• Evaluate screeners, eligibility criteria, question wording, response scales, survey flow, branching/skip logic, and overall instrument structure.

• Identify leading, ambiguous, overly technical, or otherwise problematic questions.

• Ensure questionnaires are appropriately constructed for physician, specialist, PCP, and patient audiences.

• Review survey length, respondent burden, ordering effects, recall requirements, and potential sources of measurement bias.

• Assess whether questions will generate reliable, interpretable, and decision-useful data.

• Incorporate pharmaceutical and healthcare market-research conventions into survey design.

• Collaborate with therapeutic-area specialists to ensure questions are clinically accurate and appropriately framed.

• Where qualified, independently review both the research methodology and therapeutic-area content of an instrument.

• Provide clear written explanations and actionable recommendations for survey improvements.

What We’re Looking For

Candidates may come from backgrounds including:

• Healthcare / pharmaceutical market research

• Healthcare consumer insights

• Pharmaceutical primary market research

• Survey methodology

• Quantitative healthcare research

• Patient or physician research

• Behavioural science

• Healthcare consulting

• Medical communications or research

• Life-sciences insights and analytics

• Patient experience / patient insights

Relevant titles may include:

• Healthcare Market Research Manager / Director

• Pharmaceutical Market Researcher

• Primary Market Research Manager

• Consumer / Patient Insights Manager

• Healthcare Insights Consultant

• Survey Researcher / Survey Methodologist

• Quantitative Researcher

• Research Director

• Healthcare Research Consultant

• Behavioural Scientist

• Patient Insights Lead

• HCP Insights Lead

• Commercial Insights Manager / Director

• Medical Insights Researcher

Ideal Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional experience in healthcare, pharmaceutical, life-sciences, or medically focused research.

• Hands-on experience developing or fielding surveys involving physicians, patients, HCPs, or other healthcare stakeholders.

• Strong command of questionnaire design and survey methodology.

• Understanding of physician research considerations such as speciality screening, patient-volume qualification, treatment behaviour, prescribing patterns, treatment pathways, and clinical terminology.

• Experience with patient surveys and concepts such as diagnosis history, treatment experience, symptoms, quality of life, adherence, and patient journey research is valuable.

• Familiarity with pharmaceutical market research, commercial insights, medical affairs research, or related life-sciences research environments.

• Experience with platforms such as Qualtrics, Decipher/Forsta, Alchemer, SurveyMonkey, or similar tools is helpful but not required.

• Excellent written reasoning and ability to provide precise methodological feedback.

Therapeutic-Area Experience

Expertise in one or more therapeutic areas is highly valuable, with immediate interest in:

• Oncology , particularly prostate cancer

• Gastroenterology , particularly ulcerative colitis / inflammatory bowel disease

• Neurology , particularly migraine and headache disorders

• Pulmonology / Respiratory Medicine , particularly COPD

Additional pharmaceutical therapeutic-area expertise is welcome as future surveys will span other indications.

Particularly Strong Profiles

We are especially interested in professionals who can independently cover both sides of the review process: someone who understands how to construct a rigorous healthcare survey and has sufficient therapeutic-area expertise to evaluate whether its clinical assumptions, terminology, treatment pathways, and questions make sense. Candidates who specialise primarily in healthcare survey methodology remain highly relevant and may be paired with a dedicated therapeutic-area expert.

Why Join

• Apply healthcare research expertise to cutting-edge AI and research initiatives.

• Influence the quality of real physician and patient research instruments.

• Work across multiple therapeutic areas and research questions.

• Collaborate with experienced clinical and life-sciences specialists.