CEOs of BioNTech, Pfizer, J&J and Merck Make List of Highest-Paid Pharma Execs
Source: Children’s Health Defense
The CEO of Germany’s BioNTech outearned all his fellow pharma CEOs in 2024, according to Fierce Pharma. Dr. Uğur Şahin’s nine-figure salary — $287 million — rocketed him to the top of the industry publication’s list of highest-paid CEOs.
Eli Lilly’s CEO, David Ricks, shot to second on the list with $29.2 million in total compensation. Eli Lilly makes the weight loss blockbuster drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro, which rival Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy. In July, Eli Lilly will start selling the drugs online at discounted prices directly to consumers who have a prescription.
The Fierce Pharma list included other executives from some of the top vaccine manufacturers. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla ranked third, with a total compensation of $24.6 million — his second-highest annual salary after his $33 million payout in 2022, when Pfizer was reaping massive profits from its COVID-19 vaccine and its antiviral Paxlovid.
The CEOs of Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca also made the list, even after the disastrous outcomes for their COVID-19 vaccines. Johnson & Johnson’s shot, associated with serious and life-threatening blood clots, is no longer available in the U.S.
AstraZeneca similarly had to withdraw its vaccine from global sales in 2024, after conceding the shot caused potentially fatal blood clots.
Merck’s Robert Davis moved up from No. 10 to No. 7 this year, earning $23.2 million. That’s almost double what he made in 2021, when he took over as CEO of the company that makes the Gardasil HPV vaccine, Pneumovax 23, and the MMRII vaccine, among others.
‘New status quo in the realm of CEO compensation’
Executives’ total salaries typically include a combination of a base salary plus bonuses and profits tied to equity positions in the companies they lead.
Fierce Pharma said the massive pay packages “seem to further cement a new status quo in the realm of CEO compensation, as several recently appointed leaders settle into their roles and companies establish their market positions heading into the second half of the decade.”
BioNTech’s Şahin earned a salary of $3.4 million in 2024. However, he also exercised an option to cash out a large portion of his shares in the company, for a $287 million payout — more than 10 times greater than any other executive on the list.
Fierce Pharma called the payout “eye-popping,” but noted that it was less than the 2023 payout to Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel, who cashed in his stock options for more than $392 million that year.
Such payouts have been ongoing, at least since the COVID-19 vaccines first became available.
In 2020, Bancel came under fire when he more than tripled the number of company shares to be sold through an executive stock plan that was changed just days after the company announced positive early results for its COVID-19 vaccine.
Bancel sold more than 72,000 Moderna shares in July 2020, generating nearly $4.8 million. According to CBS News, “that was more than triple the 22,000 shares he had previously scheduled to sell during the same period through the company’s executive trading plan” — and a mere fraction of the $392 million he would make three years later.
Drugmakers sue to keep prices high
Despite public criticism, other pharma execs also cashed in during the pandemic. Their salaries have remained high ever since.
According to a 2021 report by Accountable.US, a nonprofit nonpartisan public advocate and watchdog organization that monitors public corruption, executives at five drug companies — Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Emergent BioSolutions (contracted to manufacture Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine) and Novavax — made $250 million dumping company stocks during the first six months of “Operation Warp Speed.”
In addition to blockbuster drugs that net massive profits for Big Pharma, the highest-grossing companies also continue to hike drug prices and are embroiled in legal battles to stop regulators from keeping prices down.
For example, Accountable.US reported that Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb, whose executives were both on the list, are actively pursuing legal action to halt reductions in Medicare drug prices negotiated by the Biden administration.
AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are also suing the government over the reduction in drug prices. So is the pharmaceutical industry lobbying group PhRMA.
Drug companies have also largely opposed Trump’s executive order on drug pricing, particularly the “Most-Favored Nation” concept, which seeks to tie U.S. drug prices to the lower prices paid in other developed countries
Drugmakers often claim that price hikes are necessary to cover the costs of research and development. However, research shows that in recent years, the top 5 U.S.-based companies have spent more on stock buybacks and dividend payouts than on research and development.
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The full list of top-paid pharma executives:
- Uğur Şahin, BioNTech, $287 million
- David Ricks, Eli Lilly, $29.2 million
- Albert Bourla, Ph.D., Pfizer, $24.6 million
- Robert Bradway, Amgen, $24.4 million
- Joaquin Duato, Johnson & Johnson, $24.6 million
- Daniel O’Day, Gilead Sciences, $23.7 million
- Robert Davis, Merck & Co., $23.2 million
- Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca, $22.9 million
- Reshma Kewalramani, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, $21.54 million
- Chris Boerner, Bristol Myers Squibb, $18.8 million
Despite their high salaries, none of the U.S.-based executives made Becker’s Hospital Review’s list of the 37 people in the U.S. Healthcare who are on Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires List. Moderna’s Bancel is on the Forbes list, with a net worth of $1.2 billion.
Bancel wasn’t included on Fierce Pharma’s list because its rankings included only companies with market caps of $25 billion or greater, but Fierce Pharma reported in March that Bancel’s 2024 salary was $19.87 million. The company added a second approved mRNA vaccine to its two-product portfolio in 2024, when it won approval for its mRESVIA RSV vaccine for older adults.
Last week, Moderna won expanded approval for the drug for adults ages 18 and older.
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