Pharma Roundup: AstraZeneca Wins Web Traffic, Genentech Wins "Best Employer," and More

(MoneyWatch)  AstraZeneca's Nexium is most-visited drug website -- The "Purple Pill" drew over one million unique visitors to its page in the second quarter of 2008, an increase of 55% over last year. Following Nexium were Takeda's diabetes treatment Actos, with 855,000 unique visitors, and Sanofi-Aventis' insomnia treatment Ambien CR, with 756,000. [Source: Washington Business Journal, via Corey Nahman]

Industry workers vote Genentech top employer -- Based on a survey of about 4,000 pharma and biotech employees, Science magazine released this year's best-to-work-for list. Genentech led the pack. Other big names in the top 10 were Boehringer and Lilly. Notably absent from the top 20 were Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb. [Source: Pharma's Market]

Fewer DDMAC warning letters -- The Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications at the FDA is sending out fewer and fewer warning letters each year. In 1998, for instance, 156 were sent, but in 2007 only 20 went out, and the first three quarters of this year saw only 13, 6 of them in one week. [Source: Eye on FDA]
GSK execs talk research -- Two senior R&D figures at GlaxoSmithKline spoke to Nature about where they see the industry going in these difficult times. Moncef Slaoui, R&D chair, and Patrick Vallance, senior VP of drug discovery, discussed more specific treatments and smaller research units, among other points. [Source: Nature News, via PharmaGossip]