Following a close second in the respondents' rankings is another biotechnology company that has become a serious player in drug discovery and development: Millennium Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The top ten list also includes Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Merck, Monsanto, Amgen, Pharmacia, and AstraZeneca.
The next ten companies ranked in the survey include a mixture of American biotechnology firms and American and European pharmaceuticals: Novartis, Biogen, Chiron Corporation, Bayer, Schering Plough, Abbott Laboratories, Wyeth, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Glaxo Smith Kline, and Roche.
The San Francisco area firm Genentech, which was instrumental in launching the global biotechnology industry when it was founded in 1976, ranked highest in the attributes that respondents regarded as most important about biopharma employers. These attributes included innovative leadership within the industry, loyal employees, an "alignment" of work culture and personal values, and quality research.
"The values that our founders Herb Boyer and Bob Swanson imparted remain today: valuing employees' creativity and allowing freedom for individual scientists to innovate and be creative," said Richard Scheller, vice president of research at Genentech.
"It's not enough just to be creative and just to make scientific discoveries that are interesting and important. We want to translate those discoveries into medicine to help sick people," Scheller added.
Other ranking attributes in the survey--considered less important but still key to the employers' overall reputation--included good financial investment, a clear vision for the f
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Contact: Rebecca Ham
rham@aaas.org
202-326-6657
American Association for the Advancement of Science
19-Sep-2002