Largest Pharmaceutical Companies by Revenue, Number of Employees

There are certainly numerous smaller and start-up businesses in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology fields offering rewarding employment opportunities. Small start-up firms focusing on R&D can offer particularly exciting opportunities to work on cutting-edge and life-saving products.  However, nearly 60% of all jobs in the pharmaceutical and medical manufacturing industry are in large establishments employing more than 500 workers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.  This is unsurprising, as it is larger, longer-established companies that have grown their staffs throughout their lifecycle past the early, research-intensive R&D and regulatory approvals stages to manufacturing production and international marketing of the resulting products

Listed below by order of annual revenues, and including the number of workers employed, are those top pharmaceutical companies ranked among the Fortune 500 for 2007.

Of the above, Merck and Abbott Labs were also listed on THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine's Top 100 Employers for the Class of 2007, based on a survey of companies' planned hiring of entry-level candidates and campus recruiting activities.

Top Employers to Work For

Bigger is not always better. In 2007, only two Pharmaceutical/Biotech employers were listed on both the Fortune 500 list of the top pharmaceutical companies by industry and the Fortune’s 2007 list of “100 Best Companies to Work For”  lists: Amgen and Genzyme.  However, a number of additional organizations in pharmaceuticals and related industries large and small were ranked among "Best Employers" in Fortune's January 22, 2007 issue, representing a diverse range of related businesses.

The Fortune listing is based on a survey of organizations' efforts to keep employees happy, accounting for such attributes as salary, benefits, bonuses, and diversity.  However, it also reflects some less readily quantified aspects that some employees shared in anecdotes published along with the survey, ranging from gay- and family-friendly workplace policies to pride in its products to community engagement and corporate citizenship.  The list includes a number of small businesses and even non-profits whose workers' satisfaction set them above many megacorps with much deeper pockets.

Those in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, as well as medical instrumentation, who were ranked among Fortune's "Best Employers" for 2007 include:

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