In the third quarter of 2011, hiring numbers in the biotech and pharma sectors declined slightly on average compared with the second quarter of 2011 (Nat. Biotechnol. 29, 846, 2011), as seen in three representative job databases tracked by Nature Biotechnology (Tables 1 and 2). In addition, we updated our list of the 25 largest biotech companies based on full-time employees in 2010. Amylin Pharmaceuticals (San Diego) and Elan (Dublin) both dropped off the list and Millipore (Billerica, MA, USA) was reclassified as a non-biotech; they were replaced by Endo Pharmaceuticals (Newark, DE, USA), Dendreon (Seattle) and Albany Molecular Research (Albany, NY, USA).

Table 1 Who's hiring? Advertised openings at the 25 largest biotech companies
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Table 2 Advertised job openings at the ten largest pharma companies
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Roche (Basel) announced the expansion of its Mississauga, Ontario facility. The move will create about 200 jobs and Roche will manage operations for all stages of global clinical trial research from the site. And the UK government will remake a former Pfizer R&D site into an enterprise zone that it says will attract 190 companies and create 2,400 jobs in the life sciences. Pfizer had announced its intention to close the location in Sandwich, UK, last February.

Dendreon experienced significant growth due to the launch of Provenge (sipuleucel-T) in April 2010. However, since then, lower-than-expected uptake has prompted Dendreon to reduce its head count by about 500, or 25%, with the largest cuts coming from the manufacturing side. In addition, Merck (Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA) will continue to reduce its head count by an additional 12–13%, about 12,000–13,000 employees, by the end of 2015. Table 3 shows selected third-quarter downsizings within the life science industry.

Table 3 Selected biotech and pharma downsizings
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