But a special bonus they received last year helped push Genentech onto our list of top-paying Best Companies. A little background: In March, Swiss pharma giant Roche agreed to buy Genentech for $46.8 billion. To keep talent from fleeing, Roche gave every Genentech employee a retention bonus in lieu of the stock options they would have received otherwise: 11,000 employees split $182 million. A second round of retention bonuses will be paid this March.