Back in 2003, when The Scientist launched its Best Places to Work series, the biotech and pharma industries looked a bit different than they do today. Ten years ago, in the wake of large industry scandals involving Enron and ImClone, industry research scientists said that they wanted nothing more than to work for a company that had integrity. In this year’s survey, researchers say what they look for most in an employer is the ability to provide deep personal and scientific satisfaction—although high ethical standards still rank as the third most important factor, and six of this year’s top 20 institutions scored high marks for integrity.
Back then, to fill gaping holes in pharmaceutical pipelines, many companies pumped more money into research and development (R&D), with investment tripling over the previous 10 years to more than $30 billion a year. While R&D investment is still high—at around $65 billion annually—a greater percentage of that money goes into ushering compounds through the costly development and clinical trial phases, with many large companies looking outside for innovative research. Pharma’s change in strategy hasn’t gone unnoticed by the industry’s smaller businesses. Biotech is beginning to look a lot more like pharma these days. As small companies compete for lucrative licensing and codevelopment deals with their larger rivals, they are forced to take their products further down the regulatory pathway toward clinical approval than ever before. Indeed, in the last year, the smaller companies scoring high in our survey have launched or advanced the development of a wide range of clinical products, including broad-spectrum antibiotics (#6); plague and botulinum neurotoxin vaccines (#9); and treatments for eye disorders (#13), cystic fibrosis, and hepatitis C (#5).
To read the full, original article click on this link: Best Places to Work Industry, 2012 | The Scientist
