Thirty miles north of Houston, texas - and a world away from the biopharmaceutical industry's hubs in California and New Jersey - sits The Woodlands, a sylvan community and home to the headquarters of Lexicon Pharmaceuticals.
The company was founded in 1995 as Lexicon Genetics, and until last year focused almost exclusively on creating knockout models by the thousands for drug target discovery. This past year, Lexicon shifted gears, moving into the commercial development of drugs. With the organizational change came a new name, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, soon followed by layoffs of 120 people out of a workforce of about 700 people. Despite the change, Lexicon employees gave their company good marks, winning ninth place in this year's Best Places to Work in Industry overall list, up from 26th place the previous year.
"We all agree that we have a common goal," says Lexicon's associate director of oncology, Rick Finch. "We're ...
