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| Robert Bradway |
Amgen's ($AMGN) new CEO scored a big raise when he was promoted last year. Robert Bradway took over from ex-chief Kevin Sharer at the end of May, and by year's end, he had racked up $13.57 million in compensation for the year, almost twice what he made in 2011 as president and COO. And his predecessor's pay dropped by half, knocking him off our list of highest-paid biopharma executives.
How did Bradway's compensation change? His base salary only increased by $240,000, to $1.26 million. He garnered $3.3 million in incentive pay, up from $1.86 million the previous year, an increase of 78%. His "other" compensation grew to $420,059 from $259,522.
But the lion's share of the increase came in the form of stock awards: Bradway received $8.57 million worth last year (but no options). In 2011, his stock awards and options amounted to $3.15 million and $833,850, or $3.98 million altogether. That's less than half of the 2012 award.
Meanwhile, Kevin Sharer's pay dropped by more than half. After stepping aside as CEO in late May, Sharer remained in the chairman's seat till the end of the year. That meant a big pay cut, apparently; he earned $9.13 million, down from $18.85 million in 2011.
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| Kevin Sharer |
Sharer's base pay hardly budged--it rose to $1.8 million from $1.79 million. The big change, again, came in the form of stock awards. For 2011 he collected almost $9 million in stock and $2.4 million in options, a total of more than $11 million. For 2012, his stock award amounted to $3.66 million. His incentive pay also dropped, to $2.3 million from $4.9 million.
In recent years, Sharer has been a perennial entry on the list of highest-paid biopharma executives. In fact, his 2010 pay--$21.1 million--made a big splash in the media; the Washington Post cited it as a prime example of the ever-upward spiral in CEO pay, thanks to peer-group pay-comparisons. But his 2012 pay won't make the cutoff for FiercePharma's impending ranking.
Neither will Bradway's. But there's always next year, after Bradway spends all of 2013 at the CEO level.
- see the Amgen proxy (PDF)
Special Report: Kevin Sharer - Top 10 Pharma CEO Salaries of 2011