Contract Research Organizations

Very few large pharmas do research (pre-clinical and clinical) in-house anymore. Some of the CROs are larger employee wise than the pharma companies they do research for.

Lots of travel to the Bay area for that reason, too. Pharma companies can outsource research, but they are still legally responsible for the quality and reliability of the data. That means lots of meetings. Teleconferences have eliminated some travel, but definitely not all.