Say It Ain't So: Gilead Knocks Amgen Out of the Number 2 Biotech Spot
Until recently, Amgen dominated the biotechnology industry and was anointed the world's largest biotechnology company. However, Amgen recently lost its number 1 ranking to Genentech. Over the past year or so, Amgen, which is now ranked number 2, has been acting a lot like Avis, the car rental company , which in the 1970s adopted the slogan “Avis: We Try Harder” when it was number 2 to Hertz in the car rental rankings. Like Avis, which never overtook Hertz to claim the number 1 spot, Amgen’s efforts to regain its number 1 ranking are failing.
Today, market analysts noted that, for the first time, Gilead Sciences had overtaken Amgen as the world's second most highly-valued biotech company. Genentech still maintains its comfortable number 1 ranking with an extraordinary market capitalization of more than $83 billion. That said, it is still somewhat of a horse race between Gilead and Amgen for the number 2 spot– as of this morning, Amgen's market cap was approximately $43.5 billion whereas Gilead's was $45.5 billion. Amgen is still ranked highest when it comes to annual revenues: $14.8 billion in 2007 versus Genentech's $11.7 billion and Gilead's $4.2 billion.
Are rankings really that important? Maybe we should ask the Georgetown and Duke men’s basketball teams after this weekend’s NCAA second round tournament games! They might have some interesting insights to share.
Until Next Time….
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (Stay out of A Thousand Oaks)
