Science Magazine Survey: American Life Sciences Companies are Some of the Best to Work for in the World

An annual survey conducted by Science magazine and the American Association has identified the 2008 top twenty life sciences employers in the world. The rankings were based on a company’s leadership, stability, social responsibility and treatment of its employees. Six of the top 10— Genentech, Gilead Sciences, Genzyme Corp., Schering-Plough Corp., Gilead Sciences are based in the US whereas the remaining four—Boehringer Ingelheim, Roche Pharmaceuticals, EMD Serono, and Millennium are headquartered outside of the US. For the first time, eight of the top 20 are located outside the United States.

In case you were wondering, Genentech was ranked number 1. This is the fifth time out of the past 6 years that the San-Francisco based company made it to the number one slot (it fell to second last year). Another notable is Massachusetts-based Genzyme which made it to the number 3 spot (out of 575 companies) for the second consecutive year. Surprisingly, Monsanto, the company that makes genetically modified seed crops, was number 2—this despite all of the negative press about genetically modified foods. Let see whether or not Genentech can retain its number 1 ranking after the Roche takeover of the company is completed.

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!

 

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)