Company details

HEADCOUNT

100-499

ORG TYPE

Startup

SECTOR

Healthcare & Life Sciences

WEBSITE

http://www.formation.bio/

About the company

Formation Bio is a tech-driven pharma company focused on making drug development and clinical trials faster and more efficient, with a stated emphasis on using AI in day-to-day work. The company describes a hub-and-spoke model where Formation Bio in-licenses or partners on clinical-stage assets and then supplies the capital and capabilities to advance them. The company’s blog frames the core bottleneck as clinical development rather than drug discovery, and the product work sits across clinical operations, quality systems, data, and software.

Locations and presence

Formation Bio describes hybrid teams anchored in four hiring hubs: New York City, Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, and North Carolina’s Research Triangle. Recent job descriptions reinforce a “key hubs” hiring approach and ask applicants to already be in those metros or be willing to relocate.

Palpable Score

55.2

/ 100

Formation Bio looks strong on benefits and pay transparency for a company at this size, and the careers site puts real effort into describing learning resources. The score stays mid-pack because current public openings skew senior and there is limited public proof of repeat early-career hiring or early-career progression outcomes.

Pillar 1: Early-career access

Score

8.2

/ 20

The company’s current public job board is dominated by Senior Director, Senior Manager, Director, VP, and Associate Director roles, with no clearly labeled 0–3 year track visible.
Formation Bio has at least one publicly visible “internship experience” review, which suggests internships have existed, but there is no current internship intake or campus pipeline described in the open roles.
The company does not publish an early-career landing page, new grad program, apprenticeship, or recurring junior titles (Analyst, Associate, Coordinator) that a graduate could reliably target today.

Pillar 2: Hiring fairness and transparency

Score

10.8

/ 20

The company includes explicit salary ranges and equity language in job descriptions, plus clear location requirements tied to the company’s hiring hubs.
Formation Bio is associated with a below-50% “positive interview experience” rate on public interview feedback pages, which is a meaningful risk signal for candidate treatment consistency.
The company appears to use multi-stage loops for some roles, including presentation-style asks mentioned in interview feedback, but the company does not publish a candidate guide that sets expectations for time, prep burden, or feedback standards.

Pillar 3: Learning and support

Score

12.7

/ 20

The company lists concrete development supports such as fireside chats with industry experts, conference passes, certification courses, internal mobility opportunities, manager training, and leadership coaching.
Formation Bio positions the culture around direct, actionable feedback and cross-functional work, and the careers page includes employee quotes that emphasize autonomy and being listened to regardless of tenure.
The company does not publish role-level onboarding plans, mentorship structures, or early-career ramp expectations, which limits confidence for a first job or second job move.

Pillar 4: Pay fairness and stability

Score

14.5

/ 20

The company publishes salary ranges for roles on the public job board and explicitly states that equity is part of the overall package in multiple postings.
Formation Bio offers benefits that support stability, including health, dental, and vision coverage, commuter benefits, a 401(k), disability and life insurance, and paid parental leave (16 weeks birthing, 12 weeks non-birthing).
The company’s compensation transparency is stronger for senior roles than for junior roles because junior roles are not consistently visible, which caps how confidently early-career pay fairness can be assessed.

Pillar 5: Early-career outcomes

Score

9.0

/ 20

The company has mixed public employee sentiment signals, including a majority-but-not-strong “would recommend” rate on an employer review site, which suggests outcomes vary by team.
Formation Bio does not publish early-career outcomes such as internship-to-full-time conversion rates, typical promotion timelines, or retention over 12–24 months.
The company’s visible team size and ongoing hiring suggest room for internal mobility, but public profiles and general reviews do not replace tracked early-career progression data.