Big Pharma's 10 highest-paid CEOs of 2023—Fierce Pharma reveals the eye-watering pay packets from last year
...don't tell me it's all about depopulation! Bill Gates is coining it in...
Here you go subscribers - read this and weep:
Big Pharma's 10 highest-paid CEOs of 2023
If you only get a chance to read this below, that should be enough:
Company: Pfizer
2023 total compensation: $21.56 million
2022 total compensation: $33 million
Change: -35%
When Pfizer scored with a pair of megablockbuster COVID-19 products and rang up an industry record $100.3 billion in revenue in 2022, the company rewarded its top executives with massive pay increases, including a $33 million compensation package to CEO Albert Bourla, Ph.D., making him the third highest-paid helmsman that year in biopharma.
But last year—as demand for COVID products plummeted much more precipitously than the company anticipated—Pfizer fell far short of its financial targets for the year. While revenue plunged by 41%, the company’s shares took an even steeper decline at 44%.
With those figures came a 35% drop in compensation for Bourla to $21.56 million. As Pfizer explained (PDF) in its proxy filing, the company ties its nonequity incentive pay plan to the achievement of annual financial targets. In 2023, one of those goals was to generate sales of $68.8 billion.
Pfizer came up short by around $10 billion, realizing sales of just $58.5 billion. The company projected combined sales of COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty and COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid to reach $21.5 billion in 2023, but, in the end, they came to only $12.5 billion.
As a result, Bourla’s nonequity incentive plan pay dropped from $7.65 million in 2022 to nil in 2023. Bourla wasn’t alone, as none of Pfizer’s C-suite execs received annual cash bonuses for the year.
At the head of the pack for Big Pharma CEO pay last year was J&J’s Joaquin Duato, who saw his total pay leap a staggering 116% to $28.4 million. Duato took over from longtime helmsman—and serial top contender on Fierce’s pay rankings—Alex Gorsky in early 2022, but the chief executive’s pay package of $13.1 million that year precluded him from the annual roster.
With Duato at the top, it’s little surprise then that Eli Lilly’s CEO David Ricks landed in the No. 2 spot. Ricks’ 2023 compensation of $26.6 million marked the executive’s highest total to date, and it came during a period of strength for Lilly: The company's global sales climbed 20% last year thanks to its immensely popular offerings in diabetes and obesity…
…As is often the case, U.S.-based CEOs dominated the list. But that didn’t stop AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot from snagging the No. 8 spot with 16.9 million pounds sterling ($21.3 million) in total 2023 pay. The AZ chief’s compensation places him squarely in the lead compared to his European counterparts at companies such as Novartis, Roche, Sanofi and crosstown rival GSK.
This is all wrong—why are people putting up with it???
So, it’s not just Pfizer and the little minnows BioNTech and Moderna, they are all at it. Eli Lilly is in the top ten because it’s been gaming patent law for years to screw type-1 diabetics into the ground, see:
That’s it for now. I’ll leave you to digest this.
I’ll be digging deeper for paid subscribers over the coming days.
Regards,
Hedley
Can we see their employment contracts? I’d be most interested in job description and responsibilities. Work time might be interesting, too.
Murder for hire always pays well.