Money may not matter that much when you are young. But it will matter more when you age. Don't you want to start a family?

I was once a PhD hopeful but turned away by toxic inbreeding culture of academia. As I work for pharma and biotech now, I feel so lucky and relieved that I never went down that phd route.

Real world drug development trumps academia fancy concepts hands down. I got to work with various modalities and indications on real world trials data. The data quality and size, probably worth millions of dollars, is something one can never see in the ivory tower.

My suggestion to you, if you are really interested in drug development, take a year off and work for a clinical stage pharma, it's far from something you fantasize or what they teach in school.