Sanofi and AbbVie CEOs suffer pay cuts, post row over Mylan CEO’s salary hike

By PharmaCompass

2019-03-14

Impressions: 237 Article

Salaries of CEOs in the pharma world are currently under the radar, as companies announce their annual results. Last week, Phispers told you about Mylan CEO Heather Bresch’s 15 percent salary raise, and the controversy surrounding it.

This week, there were reports that Sanofi’s CEO, Olivier Brandicourt, saw a cut in his compensation package by 25 percent to US$ 8.2 million (€7.28 million). In fact, Sanofi suffered major sales declines in its flagship diabetes unit. Brandicourt’s pay cut comes amid heightened scrutiny in Washington over drug pricing. Insulin makers in particular have been hit hard.

Sanofi, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are being investigated by two Democratic US representatives who are questioning rising insulin pricing.

Brandicourt was one of the seven Big Pharma executives summoned by the Senate Financing Committee in late February. He tried to dispel views of law-makers that Sanofi is reaping riches out of diabetes patients by presenting data.

Sanofi’s CEO Olivier Brandicourt detailed a chart showing Sanofi and Genzyme's US sales from 2018, explaining how much of the company's sales went to discounts and rebates. The chart shows that of Sanofi's $21.6 billion in gross sales in 2018, it kept less than half the revenue, or about $8.4 billion.

Sanofi’s net revenues for the year fell nearly 2% to €34.5 billion ($38.9 billion).

Another CEO whose compensation package got a beating was AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez, who bagged a package worth a total of US$ 21.3 million for 2018, down from US$ 22.6 million the year before.

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Image Credit : #Phisper Infographic by SCORR MARKETING & PharmaCompass is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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