Did a dis­as­ter crush your stock in 2018? These biotechs were hap­py to come up with some rich com­pen­sa­tion deals for the CEO any­way

Pok­ing around proxy state­ments every year can de­liv­er some in­ter­est­ing sur­pris­es. And this year has of­fered some doozies as com­pa­nies hit with some of the biggest set­backs of re­cent times re­port­ed out some big hikes in com­pen­sa­tion for their CEOs — as well as at least one Big Phar­ma-sized pay pack­age for a team play­er at a biotech spin­off.

Few com­pa­nies had as many tra­vails this past year as Alk­er­mes. Spurned at the FDA on their lead pipeline drug — the de­pres­sion ther­a­py ALKS-5461 — the stock price $ALKS was crushed and CEO Richard Pops was left to in­sist on a re­view that led them straight down the path to a sum­ma­ry re­jec­tion and a de­mand for more da­ta. And now their stock is trad­ing at a lit­tle over half of what it was at the be­gin­ning of 2018.

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