Bio­phar­ma’s 20 high­est-paid CEOs of 2023, earn­ing $20M+ pay pack­ages

The best-paid CEOs of 2023 fall large­ly in­to two groups: They’re ei­ther run­ning some of the world’s biggest drug­mak­ers, or they were giv­en huge in­cen­tive pack­ages in their first year on the job or as head of a new­ly-pub­lic com­pa­ny.

End­points News re­viewed hun­dreds of an­nu­al proxy fil­ings across bio­phar­ma. This is the first ar­ti­cle in a se­ries ex­am­in­ing CEO and em­ploy­ee pay trends, af­ter an­a­lyz­ing over 500 CEO pay pack­ages last year. Like our analy­sis of 2022 pay pack­ages, the top 20 CEOs brought in pay­days val­ued at over $20 mil­lion.

The top-paid list has its sta­ples in phar­ma gi­ant CEOs like Am­gen’s Bob Brad­way, Pfiz­er’s Al­bert Bourla, and Eli Lil­ly’s David Ricks. But it al­so has some small­er biotechs dish­ing out equal­ly hefty awards at star­tups like Neumo­ra Ther­a­peu­tics, Ar­cel­lx, and Vir Biotech­nol­o­gy.

As in years past, End­points used the es­ti­mat­ed fair val­ue of new­ly-is­sued shares and stock op­tions. This tracks how much a com­pa­ny’s board de­cid­ed to pay its top leader in the past year, where­as oth­er meth­ods bet­ter ap­prox­i­mate a CEO’s take-home pay by cal­cu­lat­ing the val­ue of cashed-in or vest­ed eq­ui­ty in­stead. Those stock awards, how­ev­er, are typ­i­cal­ly grant­ed years ago.

Here are 2023’s high­est-paid CEOs.

#1: Ace­lyrin for­mer CEO Shao-Lee Lin — $88,678,569

Shao-Lee Lin

The high­est-paid bio­phar­ma CEO of 2023 — on pa­per — was Shao-Lee Lin, the for­mer CEO of Ace­lyrin. The im­munol­o­gy start­up raised over half a bil­lion dol­lars in the in­dus­try’s largest IPO of 2023, and short­ly there­after award­ed its founder Lin a cor­re­spond­ing­ly large pay pack­age.

Fol­low­ing its pub­lic de­but, the board hired a con­sul­tan­cy that de­ter­mined Lin’s pay was in the bot­tom quar­tile com­pared to CEOs of oth­er bio­phar­mas that re­cent­ly IPO’d. In par­tic­u­lar, the firm found the val­ue of Lin’s eq­ui­ty hold­ings lagged be­hind this peer group.

The board’s com­pen­sa­tion com­mit­tee sub­se­quent­ly grant­ed a one-time sup­ple­men­tal award in Au­gust 2023. One-third of that eq­ui­ty were shares that would vest over time, while two-thirds of the stock was con­tin­gent on its stock per­for­mance and com­pa­ny goals, like reg­u­la­to­ry sub­mis­sions and com­mer­cial readi­ness.

This is where Lin’s po­ten­tial for­tune re­mains on­ly on pa­per. Af­ter award­ing that eq­ui­ty pack­age, Ace­lyrin’s lead drug can­di­date failed a late-stage study last Sep­tem­ber, send­ing its stock in­to a tail­spin. Lin stepped down as CEO this May, and the board stat­ed her per­for­mance-based stock awards — which made up the vast ma­jor­i­ty of her re­port­ed 2023 pay — would be for­feit­ed in their en­tire­ty. Lin’s sev­er­ance in­clud­ed a $1 mil­lion lump sum pay­ment, ac­cel­er­at­ed vest­ing by 18 months on her out­stand­ing eq­ui­ty, and an ex­ten­sion in ex­er­cis­ing stock op­tions through March 31, 2025.

#2: Roy­al­ty Phar­ma CEO Pablo Legor­re­ta — $84,837,077

Pablo Legor­re­ta

In con­trast to most biotech CEOs, whose pay de­pends on stock per­for­mance, Pablo Legor­re­ta stands apart at Roy­al­ty Phar­ma.

Legor­re­ta found­ed the com­pa­ny, which buys roy­al­ty rights from drug­mak­ers, in 1996 and is award­ed a sim­pler, more di­rect pay pack­age. In­stead of salary, bonus­es and stock, Legor­re­ta re­ceives 6.5% of the cash re­ceipts from its roy­al­ty in­vest­ments each quar­ter, along with 0.25% of the quar­ter­ly val­ue of the com­pa­ny’s se­cu­ri­ty in­vest­ments.

In 2023, Legor­re­ta re­ceived $50.7 mil­lion from Roy­al­ty’s typ­i­cal busi­ness. He got an­oth­er $34.1 mil­lion from pay­ments re­lat­ed to Bio­haven. Roy­al­ty had ac­quired roy­al­ty rights and eq­ui­ty in the mi­graine drug­mak­er be­fore it was ac­quired by Pfiz­er in 2022. Last year, Pfiz­er paid $525 mil­lion to Roy­al­ty in mile­stone pay­ments for its mi­graine spray Za­vzpret, win­ning FDA ap­proval and progress on an oral ver­sion of the drug.

Roy­al­ty’s com­pen­sa­tion com­mit­tee stat­ed Legor­re­ta’s per­for­mance has been strong, call­ing his pay “rea­son­able and ap­pro­pri­ate” in its proxy fil­ings.

#3: Bausch + Lomb CEO Brent Saun­ders — $45,309,051

Brent Saun­ders

Brent Saun­ders, one of phar­ma’s most pro­lif­ic deal­mak­ers, took in one of the in­dus­try’s biggest pay­days af­ter re­turn­ing to his for­mer em­ploy­er in 2023.

Saun­ders re­ceived a $6.5 mil­lion sign-on bonus af­ter start­ing as CEO last Feb­ru­ary. The board stat­ed that bonus con­sid­ered for­feit­ed pay from “pro­vid­ing ser­vices to his for­mer em­ploy­er and oth­er boards of di­rec­tors.” Saun­ders al­so took home an an­nu­al bonus of near­ly $2.2 mil­lion, based on Bausch + Lomb’s per­for­mance. The for­mer Al­ler­gan CEO wast­ed lit­tle time in mak­ing his mark on the oph­thal­mol­o­gy spe­cial­ist, pay­ing $1.75 bil­lion to ac­quire the dry-eye drug Xi­idra from No­var­tis af­ter just a few months on the job.

About $36 mil­lion of his 2023 pay came from stock and op­tion awards. Even though Bausch + Lomb is far from the in­dus­try’s top ranks, with the com­pa­ny val­ued at about $5.3 bil­lion, Saun­ders is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue re­ceiv­ing a hefty pay pack­age, in­clud­ing a planned $14 mil­lion in ad­di­tion­al eq­ui­ty awards in 2024, ac­cord­ing to his con­tract.

A Bausch spokesper­son said more than 96% of Saun­ders’ pay — ex­clud­ing his sign­ing bonus — is con­sid­ered “at risk” and tied to the com­pa­ny’s suc­cess. “That bonus and an ini­tial eq­ui­ty award were nec­es­sary to re­cruit an ex­pe­ri­enced CEO with de­tailed knowl­edge of Bausch + Lomb who is high­ly re­gard­ed in the in­dus­try,” the spokesper­son added.

#4: Vir Biotech­nol­o­gy CEO Mar­i­anne De Backer — $39,491,495

Mar­i­anne De Backer

Mar­i­anne De Backer has one of the most chal­leng­ing jobs in biotech, tasked with lead­ing a ma­jor strate­gic change for Vir Biotech­nol­o­gy. The com­pa­ny thrived dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, de­vel­op­ing a Covid-19 an­ti­body ther­a­peu­tic, but has strug­gled to main­tain those highs.

CEO George Scan­gos re­tired in 2023, and Vir hired De Backer, a Bay­er and J&J deal­mak­ing vet­er­an, to write its next chap­ter. The board award­ed a pay pack­age of near­ly $40 mil­lion to do so, with $13.4 mil­lion in stock awards and $21.6 mil­lion in stock op­tions.

De Backer re­ceived a $5 mil­lion cash sign­ing bonus, split over two years, “de­signed to off­set fore­gone com­pen­sa­tion,” ac­cord­ing to the proxy, while al­so fac­tor­ing in the dis­rup­tion of re­lo­cat­ing her fam­i­ly from Ger­many to San Fran­cis­co. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the com­pa­ny re­im­bursed De Backer for $437,179 re­lat­ed to re­lo­ca­tion ex­pens­es and tax gross-ups.

A com­pa­ny spokesper­son said much of De Backer’s pay is “one-time in na­ture as­so­ci­at­ed with her hire,” adding the mov­ing re­im­burse­ment is typ­i­cal mar­ket prac­tice.

#5: Madri­gal Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals CEO Bill Si­bold — $32,268,400

Bill Si­bold

Si­bold joins De Backer and Saun­ders in jump­ing to a CEO spot with a big pay pack­age. Si­bold, a Sanofi vet­er­an who helped launch the megablock­buster Dupix­ent, joined Madri­gal last Sep­tem­ber to guide the $6 bil­lion biotech through its launch of Rezd­if­fra, the first FDA-ap­proved NASH drug.

Most of his $32 mil­lion pay pack­age is in eq­ui­ty, with $9.25 mil­lion of stock vest­ing over four years and $9.25 mil­lion in shares that vest if they clear cer­tain price hur­dles over the next five years.

In its proxy fil­ing, Madri­gal stat­ed it is not dis­clos­ing the spe­cif­ic stock price hur­dles “be­cause we be­lieve ad­vance dis­clo­sure of the thresh­olds could cause sig­nif­i­cant com­pet­i­tive harm to our busi­ness.” The board stat­ed that ri­val biotechs could use those thresh­olds to “un­der­cut the val­ue of the PSUs by of­fer­ing a sign-on bonus or a more eas­i­ly achiev­able com­pen­sa­tion pack­age to in­duce our CEO to leave.”

#6: Iqvia CEO Ari Bous­bib — $29,151,752

Ari Bous­bib has run the da­ta drug analy­sis gi­ant Iqvia since 2016 and been a con­stant pres­ence among the best-paid CEOs. Last year, he brought in near­ly $30 mil­lion, in­clud­ing a $1.8 mil­lion base salary, a $4.8 mil­lion bonus, and eq­ui­ty val­ued at over $21 mil­lion.

The board con­sid­ered sev­er­al fac­tors in Bous­bib’s bonus, in­clud­ing fi­nan­cial met­rics like rev­enue, free cash flow, and net lever­age ra­tio. The board al­so not­ed im­prove­ments in keep­ing work­ers, cit­ing Iqvia’s 12-month at­tri­tion rate drop­ping from a 20% high in 2021 to 17% in 2022 and 11% last year.

#7: John­son & John­son CEO Joaquin Du­a­to — $28,397,240

The obe­si­ty drug fren­zy may have vault­ed Eli Lil­ly and No­vo Nordisk over John­son & John­son as the in­dus­try’s most valu­able com­pa­nies, but J&J CEO Joaquin Du­a­to still beat them out in pay.

Du­a­to, who suc­ceed­ed Alex Gorsky in 2022, re­ceived eq­ui­ty that made up about half his pay to­tal. Most of that eq­ui­ty is tied to J&J’s earn­ings per share and to­tal stock re­turn com­pared with a peer group over three years.

#8: Eli Lil­ly CEO David Ricks — $26,565,732

David Ricks en­joyed a $5 mil­lion bump to his pay to­tal in 2023, amid Lil­ly’s stun­ning suc­cess in obe­si­ty. This was Ricks’ largest pay pack­age since be­com­ing CEO in 2017. That in­cludes a $1.6 mil­lion base salary, $18.8 mil­lion in eq­ui­ty, and a $4.4 mil­lion bonus. The com­pen­sa­tion com­mit­tee de­ter­mined his bonus based on Lil­ly’s rev­enue, earn­ings per share, and pipeline progress.

Ricks’ eq­ui­ty awards are tied to achiev­ing cer­tain fi­nan­cial goals, like grow­ing the com­pa­ny’s EPS, stock price, and if it out­per­forms peer stocks through 2025.

A Lil­ly spokesper­son said the com­pen­sa­tion com­mit­tee set ex­ec­u­tive pay by con­sid­er­ing “in­di­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions, Lil­ly’s 2023 per­for­mance, peer group da­ta, in­put from its in­de­pen­dent com­pen­sa­tion con­sul­tant, share­hold­er feed­back, and the com­mit­tee’s own judg­ment.”

#9: Fortrea Hold­ings CEO Thomas Pike — $26,320,395

The lab ser­vices gi­ant Lab­corp spun off Fortrea last sum­mer as an in­de­pen­dent con­tract re­search or­ga­ni­za­tion. The com­pa­ny hired Thomas Pike, the for­mer Quin­tiles ex­ec­u­tive, to lead the new com­pa­ny, with his first-year pay pack­age val­ued at about $26 mil­lion.

Over $24 mil­lion of that is in eq­ui­ty “in­tend­ed to pro­vide an equiv­a­lent val­ue of three years of grants,” ac­cord­ing to Fortrea’s proxy state­ment. Most of it was award­ed as a split be­tween re­strict­ed shares and op­tions in Au­gust, short­ly af­ter Fortrea com­plet­ed its spin­out. Pike did not re­ceive eq­ui­ty in 2024 and is not ex­pect­ed to re­ceive any eq­ui­ty grants through 2025 as well, ac­cord­ing to the fil­ing.

#10: Te­va CEO Richard Fran­cis — $25,706,880

For­mer San­doz CEO Richard Fran­cis reeled in a $25 mil­lion-plus pay­day in his first year at Te­va.

Fran­cis’ con­tract in­cludes a $5 mil­lion sign-on cash bonus paid out over three years, as well as $19 mil­lion in shares that vest de­pend­ing on achiev­ing com­pa­ny goals, like re­duc­ing debt and re­turn­ing to growth, and re­main­ing on the job over the next three years.

#11: Ab­b­Vie CEO Richard Gon­za­lez — $25,661,972

While Richard Gon­za­lez re­tired as Ab­b­Vie CEO this month, his last year on the job in­clud­ed a $3.5 mil­lion bonus — 11% low­er than 2022 and 29% low­er than 2021. The board not­ed the small­er bonus weighed Gon­za­lez’s “strong ex­e­cu­tion” against lost rev­enues from the patent cliff of its best-sell­ing drug, Hu­mi­ra.

“The com­mit­tee be­lieves this out­come ap­pro­pri­ate­ly bal­ances the com­pa­ny’s strong achieve­ment against plan with the re­duc­tion in ac­tu­al fi­nan­cial re­sults com­pared to pri­or years,” the proxy states.

With his long­time No. 2 Rob Michael tak­ing over the top spot, Gon­za­lez ap­pears to have suc­ceed­ed in pitch­ing a post-Hu­mi­ra plan for Ab­b­Vie. The drug­mak­er’s shares are up 25% in the past year. The com­pa­ny is re­ly­ing on bi­o­log­ics like Skyrizi and Rin­voq to fill Hu­mi­ra’s shoes, while al­so ac­quir­ing biotechs like Cerev­el Ther­a­peu­tics and Im­muno­Gen that push the phar­ma deep­er in­to neu­rol­o­gy and can­cer.

#12: Ar­cel­lx CEO Ra­mi El­ghan­dour — $24,964,306

Ar­cel­lx is one of the few IPO bright spots in re­cent years, with the cell ther­a­py start­up’s stock up over 200% since an ear­ly 2022 pub­lic de­but. CEO Ra­mi El­ghan­dour saw his pay jump from $14 mil­lion in 2022 to near­ly $25 mil­lion in 2023.

Last year’s pay­day was about 96% eq­ui­ty through a mix of re­strict­ed stock and op­tions. About $14 mil­lion came from a one-time award of per­for­mance-based shares that El­ghan­dour was ini­tial­ly set to re­ceive af­ter its IPO. He de­clined that grant to en­sure the com­pa­ny had enough eq­ui­ty re­serves for every em­ploy­ee to re­ceive eq­ui­ty grants, a spokesper­son said. The com­pen­sa­tion com­mit­tee re-grant­ed those shares in 2023. El­ghan­dour will on­ly earn all the re­strict­ed shares if Ar­cel­lx is worth more than $5 bil­lion. The biotech cur­rent­ly com­mands a mar­ket val­ue of about $2.9 bil­lion.

#13: Am­gen CEO Bob Brad­way — $22,643,650

Am­gen’s leader has tak­en in a $20 mil­lion-plus pay­day for each of the past four years, with his 2023 pack­age be­ing his largest since start­ing as CEO in 2012.

The board award­ed Bob Brad­way a $4.3 mil­lion bonus, pri­mar­i­ly based on fi­nan­cial met­rics like rev­enue and net in­come. He re­ceived an an­nu­al eq­ui­ty pack­age val­ued at $15.9 mil­lion for each of the past three years. The board de­cid­ed to boost that eq­ui­ty to $18 mil­lion per year start­ing in 2024 “to rec­og­nize his suc­cess­ful lead­er­ship” of the $167 bil­lion mar­ket cap gi­ant.

#14: Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day — $22,607,690

Long­time Roche leader Daniel O’Day has sur­passed the five-year mark at Gilead with mixed re­sults. The Cal­i­for­nia phar­ma’s stock trades near the same lev­el as when he joined, and O’Day has whiffed on some big M&A bets. Most no­tably, Gilead has al­ready tak­en over $5 bil­lion in im­pair­ment charges on its $21 bil­lion ac­qui­si­tion of Im­munomedics in 2020, as the key can­cer drug be­hind that deal has stum­bled in the clin­ic.

O’Day still brought in a top pay pack­age in 2023, val­ued at $22.6 mil­lion. That in­cludes a $1.74 mil­lion base salary, a $4 mil­lion bonus, and over $15 mil­lion in eq­ui­ty. Half of those eq­ui­ty awards re­quire hit­ting stock and rev­enue tar­gets. The oth­er half are shares and op­tions that vest over time.

#15: Neumo­ra Ther­a­peu­tics CEO Hen­ry Gose­bruch — $21,999,269

Af­ter two decades in M&A bank­ing, Hen­ry Gose­bruch joined Ab­b­Vie in 2015 and left last year to lead the start­up Neumo­ra. Gose­bruch re­ceived a $2.5 mil­lion sign-on bonus and eq­ui­ty val­ued at over $18 mil­lion.

Neumo­ra went pub­lic last fall, and the $1.4 bil­lion biotech is ad­vanc­ing a range of neu­ro­log­i­cal treat­ments. Its most ad­vanced pro­gram is in a Phase 3 de­pres­sion study.

A com­pa­ny spokesper­son said Gose­bruch’s pay was main­ly long-term eq­ui­ty in­cen­tive to align his goals with “val­ue cre­ation for share­hold­ers.” They added the com­pa­ny seeks to make its ex­ec­u­tive pay “rea­son­able and com­pet­i­tive.”

#16: Pfiz­er CEO Al­bert Bourla — $21,562,064

As the pan­dem­ic boom wanes, so has Al­bert Bourla’s pay, falling from $33 mil­lion in 2022 to about $22 mil­lion last year.

Most no­tably, Pfiz­er’s board de­clined to award Bourla or oth­er top Pfiz­er ex­ec­u­tives any bonus for 2023. Bourla had re­ceived $7.65 mil­lion and $8 mil­lion bonus­es over the pre­vi­ous two years.

“Al­though the fi­nan­cial per­for­mance of our non-Covid prod­ucts large­ly met their ob­jec­tives, the low­er-than-ex­pect­ed de­mand and re­sult­ing sales for our Covid-19 prod­ucts caused the com­pa­ny to un­der­per­form against our an­nu­al fi­nan­cial tar­gets,” the proxy states. “While per­for­mance against the pipeline and ESG mod­i­fiers gen­er­at­ed a pos­i­tive mod­i­fi­er, the com­mit­tee, in con­sul­ta­tion with its in­de­pen­dent com­pen­sa­tion con­sul­tant, and us­ing a holis­tic ap­proach, de­cid­ed that no bonus­es would be paid to” the com­pa­ny’s lead­er­ship team.

Specif­i­cal­ly, the Pfiz­er board set a 2023 rev­enue tar­get of $68.8 bil­lion, and Pfiz­er end­ed the year at $59.3 bil­lion in rev­enue. It al­so fell well short of the board’s goals for earn­ings per share and cash flows.

Even with­out a bonus, Bourla is among the high­est-paid in the in­dus­try. His base salary is near­ly $1.8 mil­lion, paired with new eq­ui­ty awards val­ued at over $17 mil­lion.

Pfiz­er’s proxy al­so fore­casts his 2024 pay pack­age at $23.4 mil­lion, in­clud­ing eq­ui­ty val­ued at $18 mil­lion. A Pfiz­er spokesper­son said the board and pay com­mit­tee views that stock award as “an ap­pro­pri­ate per­for­mance-based in­cen­tive op­por­tu­ni­ty and rec­og­nizes Dr. Bourla for his lead­er­ship and fo­cus on Pfiz­er’s long-term strat­e­gy.”

#17: As­traZeneca CEO Pas­cal So­ri­ot — $21,515,210

Pas­cal So­ri­ot is the sole Eu­ro­pean-based ex­ec­u­tive on this list, but not with­out a bit of ef­fort — and con­tro­ver­sy.

So­ri­ot has made the case — some­times pub­licly — that he is un­der­paid, par­tic­u­lar­ly when look­ing at his US-based peers. As­traZeneca’s board grap­pled with that ge­o­graph­i­cal dif­fer­ence in its lat­est pay re­port, stat­ing that both 40% of its se­nior lead­er­ship and 40% of its rev­enues are in the US. The com­pen­sa­tion com­mit­tee said it is seek­ing to boost So­ri­ot’s max bonus po­ten­tial and eq­ui­ty award amount to of­fer “more com­pet­i­tive” pay pack­ages to its lead­er­ship.

For 2023, So­ri­ot brought in near­ly £17 mil­lion, or about $21.5 mil­lion. The board faced op­po­si­tion from top share­hold­er ad­vi­so­ry groups in its plan to boost So­ri­ot’s fu­ture pay to near­ly £19 mil­lion. While an ad­vi­so­ry group called it “ex­ces­sive,” some of As­traZeneca’s largest share­hold­ers de­fend­ed the move, ar­gu­ing So­ri­ot is “mas­sive­ly un­der­paid.” Ul­ti­mate­ly, a ma­jor­i­ty of share­hold­ers vot­ed this spring in fa­vor of So­ri­ot’s pay pack­age.

A com­pa­ny spokesper­son not­ed that As­traZeneca has brought in a to­tal share­hold­er re­turn of 40% over the past three years, beat­ing peer com­pa­nies and the broad­er stock mar­ket.

As a for­eign fil­er, As­traZeneca re­port­ed its pay to­tals dif­fer­ent­ly than the rest of this list by fac­tor­ing in the val­ue of a ris­ing stock price on So­ri­ot’s long-term eq­ui­ty awards.

#18: Ver­tex Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals CEO Resh­ma Ke­wal­ra­mani — $20,594,441

Resh­ma Ke­wal­ra­mani led Ver­tex be­yond cys­tic fi­bro­sis in 2023, as the biotech won ap­proval for Cas­gevy, its CRISPR-based ther­a­py for sick­le cell dis­ease and be­ta tha­lassemia.

Ke­wal­ra­mani saw a healthy pay jump, go­ing from just un­der $16 mil­lion to over $20 mil­lion. She earned a $1.5 mil­lion base salary, $4 mil­lion bonus, and $15 mil­lion in stock awards.

The board is al­so award­ing a fur­ther boost in 2024, dis­clos­ing plans to grant a $17.1 mil­lion eq­ui­ty pack­age this year. Por­tions of that are tied to one-year and three-year fi­nan­cial and non-fi­nan­cial goals. The com­pa­ny doesn’t dis­close the on­go­ing non-fi­nan­cial goals be­yond say­ing they are based on “mul­ti­ple clin­i­cal mile­stones,” cit­ing com­pet­i­tive rea­sons.

#19: Mer­ck CEO Rob Davis — $20,273,287

Rob Davis brought in just over $20 mil­lion for the first time since tak­ing over for Ken Fra­zier in 2021. He saw a 12% in­crease in his 2023 pay pack­age, pri­mar­i­ly dri­ven by more eq­ui­ty val­ued at $14 mil­lion.

Mer­ck’s board is set to give Davis an­oth­er pay bump in 2024, ap­prov­ing a $15.5 mil­lion tar­get eq­ui­ty pack­age, a $2 mil­lion in­crease from 2023.

#20: McKesson CEO Bri­an Tyler — $20,221,325

Bri­an Tyler, a McKesson lif­er, first joined the dis­tri­b­u­tion gi­ant in 1997, be­com­ing CEO in 2019. He brought in a $20 mil­lion pay­day for the com­pa­ny’s fis­cal 2023, which runs from April 2022 through March 2023.

Tyler re­ceived a base salary of near­ly $1.5 mil­lion, $13.5 mil­lion in stock awards, and a bonus of $3.1 mil­lion. The board us­es a for­mu­la based on earn­ings per share, op­er­at­ing prof­its, and free cash flow in de­ter­min­ing its bonus.

A spe­cial foot­note: 3 CEOs we missed 

Fi­nal­ly, a quick ad­den­dum to last year’s re­port. These three CEOs would have made the cut, but weren’t in­clud­ed in the analy­sis.

Roivant CEO Matt Gline: $48,978,825

Matt Gline wasn’t alone in re­ceiv­ing a mas­sive op­tions pack­age, val­ued at $47.2 mil­lion, with fel­low Roivant ex­ec­u­tives Er­ic Venker and Mayukh Sukhatme re­ceiv­ing sim­i­lar awards. In its fil­ing, Roivant said these op­tion awards “were in­tend­ed to cov­er a mul­ti-year pe­ri­od.” The New York biotech us­es a dif­fer­ent fis­cal cal­en­dar, lead­ing it to file its proxy lat­er in the sum­mer — and miss many an­nu­al pay roundups.

For­mer ProKid­ney CEO Tim Bertram: $46,133,565

In a very 2022 set of cir­cum­stances, ProKid­ney went pub­lic via a Chamath Pal­i­hapi­tiya-led SPAC. Its CEO at the time, Tim Bertram, took in a $46 mil­lion pay­day, which in­clud­ed over $44 mil­lion in eq­ui­ty. Bertram left the biotech last No­vem­ber, as ProKid­ney’s stock price fell more than 85% since the SPAC. It’s un­clear how much eq­ui­ty Bertram may still hold, but the ma­jor­i­ty of his 2022 pay came in op­tions with a $10.33 strike price — op­tions now deeply un­der­wa­ter with the stock trad­ing around $2. The biotech is now test­ing its lead drug for chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease in Phase 3 stud­ies.

Acrivon Ther­a­peu­tics CEO Pe­ter Blume-Jensen: $21,685,240

With an IPO in No­vem­ber 2022, we missed in­clud­ing Acrivon in last year’s pay re­port. CEO Pe­ter Blume-Jensen’s pay­day was pri­mar­i­ly dri­ven by eq­ui­ty awards grant­ed just af­ter its IPO. Blume-Jensen re­ceived a mix of op­tions and re­strict­ed shares that vest over four years. Acrivon’s stock has dropped about 60% since its IPO.

Cor­rec­tion:  This sto­ry has been up­dat­ed to re­move a ref­er­ence to As­traZeneca CEO Pas­cal So­ri­ot talk­ing about be­ing un­der­paid “for years.”