Last week, we unveiled our Ten Best Pharma Quotes of the Year. Here below is our special CEO Edition, with the ten best quips from, and about, drug company CEOs this year.

The anonymous blogger Chemjobber has been plying his trade as a writer for the past several years. By day, he is a process chemist at an unnamed drug/chemical manufacturer. “I'm anonymous because 'who I am' is really a distraction and it's not very interesting,” he says. “Also, it's a good way of keeping my personal and professional lives separate.” (See below for our conversation.)

The Atlantic, one of the oldest and most respected magazines around, has just come out with an article titled, "The Triumph of New-Age Medicine." In it, author David Freedman takes issue with those who would call new-age or alternative medicine "cleverly marketed, dangerous quackery."

Fewer and fewer of the men (and occasionally women) that are chosen to head up drug companies come from a scientific background. Most are businesspeople by trade, or perhaps accountants and economists. Merck's incoming CEO Ken Frazier, who takes over for Richard Clark upon his forced retirement at 65, is a lawyer. This expertise has come in handy in helping the company navigate the Vioxx crisis.

A few weeks ago, we hosted a webcast which addressed questions surrounding the relatively slow uptake of single-use technologies for biopharma measurement and control. Speakers Michael Kowolenko (formerly Sr. VP with Wyeth Biotech and Biogen Idec), Kit Erlebach (Merck) and Paul Priebe (Sartorius Stedim) offered a range of perspectives on what has been holding back single-use in biopharma. (A partial transcript is below.

Also at the SAP World Tour (see previous post), Merck’s IT Account Manager for Vaccine Manufacturing, Dermot McCaul, spoke about his company’s ongoing implementation of SAP’s Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP MII) application.

Susan Boyle apparently suffered an anxiety attack after the final installment of "U.K.'s Got Talent," so if anyone needs another inspiring story of someone who is following the beat of his or her own drummer, and who seems to be enjoying it....here's former Merck marketing manager and now full-time viral video comedian, Nalts, who has left the corporate world to pursue his true calling.  Click here for more.

There has been some discussion recently about Merck's recent continuing medical education publishing venture with Elsevier: a technically detailed corporate publication with a peer-reviewed look and the weighty name: Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine.  More on this from the Bioethics Blog.

If you put credence in Swiss firm Covalence's annual ethics rankings, yes, GSK, BMS, and J&J are the most ethical companies in the Pharmaceuticals and Biotech sector. The list looks like this:

1. GSK

2. BMS

3. J&J

4. Abbott

5. Novartis

6. Roche

7. Boehringer Ingelheim

8. Astra Zeneca

9. Pfizer