How should an Indian chemistry graduate choose between a medicinal chemistry bench role and a business analyst role in a biotech company?

The honest answer is usually that you already know the answer when you describe both roles clearly. A medicinal chemistry bench role that lacks the computational component you specifically want to work in is not the role you are excited about, it is a version of the work that is missing the part you find most interesting. A business analyst role in a peptides division of a biotech company, by contrast, offers something different: exposure to how a biotech company makes commercial decisions, which skills are adjacent to both the science and the business and are transferable in multiple directions.

• The business analyst role may not feel as scientifically pure as bench work, but it builds a set of skills, data analysis, communication, commercial thinking, that compound in value and are genuinely harder to acquire later in a research-heavy career.
• If the goal includes eventually working in drug discovery at the intersection of science and business strategy, or moving into consulting or bioentrepreneurship, the business analyst path builds the more versatile foundation.
• Choose the role where the day-to-day work reflects the problem-type you actually want to be solving.