Medicinal Chemistry - okay science, low pay/titles - Scientist Amgen Employee Review

Pay and titles not competitive with Pharma/Biotech industry. Amgen significantly underpays compare to equal sized competitors, ~10-60%. Especially considering expensive Thousand Oaks/Ventura/LA area. There are been many people leaving the Medicinal Chemistry group for higher offers, and more on the way. The Medicinal Chemistry group is offers PhD-level graduates with no Post-Docs the Senior Associate Scientist title, which is crazy, especially with low starting salary. It's no wonder why so many empty hoods. Good candidates are going other places. Career advancement is slow, but they will talk of fast promotions during interview process. There is lot of talk about the best science in industry at Amgen but there only been one small molecule drug that make it to market in the HISTORY of Amgen. A common saying you will hear a lot is Amgen is research based because research is on bottom.