Science survey ranks top biopharma employers
Science's annual survey of Top Employers polls employees in the biotechnology, biopharmaceutical, pharmaceutical, and related industries. Respondents to the web-based survey are asked to rate companies based on 23 driving characteristics, including financial strength, easy adaptation to change, and a research-driven environment.
This year, Genentech, Inc., of South San Francisco, California, regains top honors in a ranking of the world's most respected biopharmaceutical employers. The company placed first in the first five years that Science has carried out this survey. Monsanto of St. Louis, Missouri, comes in a close second, with Genzyme of Cambridge, Massachusetts, completing the top three.
This year's survey identified 17 other pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, making up a top 20 of biopharma employers.
The rankings, determined from a study conducted by an independent research firm commissioned by the business office of the journal, will appear in a special business feature of the 10 October 2008 issue.
Like Science's 2007 ranking of biopharma employers, the 2008 survey sought to identify the companies with the best reputations as employers, based on almost 4,000 survey responses from readers of Science and other respondents in industry. Twenty percent of the respondents came from outside the United States, primarily Western Europe, and 92 percent worked in private industry.
Survey responses were analyzed by Senn-Delaney Culture Diagnostics & Measurement, which used a mathematical process to assign a unique score to rate the companies' employer reputation. Each company received a ranking, for example, on the basis of whether it treats its employees with respect, whether its work-culture values align with employees' personal values, and other factors.
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For the complete business office feature with individual company rankings, go to http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2008_10_10/science.opms.r0800061. The article will not be posted at this URL address until the evening of 9 October 2008.
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