Once again, Amgen has been named by FORTUNE magazine as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For.” This year, Amgen ranked number 40, and among the five biotechnology/pharmaceutical industry companies appearing on this prestigious list, Amgen ranked second. Amgen has been selected as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” a total of eight times.

The complete list of companies and related stories will appear in the Jan. 22 issue of FORTUNE and is posted on www.fortune.com.

FORTUNE’s annual list, compiled by the Great Place to Work Institute, is based on two criteria: an evaluation of the policies and culture of each company, and the opinions of the company's employees. The latter is given more weight, with two-thirds of the total score coming from employee responses to a 57-question survey that is sent to a minimum of 400 randomly selected employees from each company.

The survey asks about things such as attitudes towards management, job satisfaction and camaraderie within the organization. The remaining one-third of the score is based on an evaluation of each company's demographic makeup, pay and benefits programs, and culture. Companies are scored in four areas: credibility (communication to employees), respect (opportunities and benefits), fairness (compensation, diversity), and pride/camaraderie (philanthropy, celebrations).

U.S. companies that are at least seven years old and have 1,000 or more employees are eligible for the list. For this year’s list, more than 100,000 employees from 446 companies participated in the survey.

To view the entire “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, click here.