Severin Schwan&Vas Narasimhan: Vas y tu cuanto ganas...?

 

While crosstown rivals Roche and Novartis routinely rank among the world's top five drugmakers by revenue, their CEOs typically fall outside the ranks of the top-paid CEOs in the industry. As for 2021, the CEOs of the Swiss drugmakers each collected more than $12 million in total pay.

Roche CEO Severin Schwan collected total pay worth 11.49 million Swiss francs ($12.48 million) last year, the company said in its annual report published Thursday. The helmsman took home a 4 million Swiss franc salary, plus a bonus worth 8 million Swiss francs. In addition, Schwan scored stock appreciation rights worth 3.38 million Swiss francs and restricted stock units worth nearly 600,000 Swiss francs. Other components of Schwan's pay, such as pension funds and an expense allowance, brought his total compensation up to 11.49 million Swiss francs.

For his part, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan, in his fourth year as chief exec, scored a pay package worth 11.22 million Swiss francs ($12.18 million). About 2.2 million Swiss francs came from fixed pay and benefits, Novartis said in its own annual report (PDF). The remaining 9 million Swiss francs came from Narasimhan's performance-related pay plan.

Novartis hit several of Narasimhan's long-term goals to warrant the payout, the company said. Its annual growth target came in at 119% of the goal in Narasimhan's long-term performance plan, and Novartis' core operating income growth doubled the CEO's target. On innovation metrics, Novartis also exceeded the CEO's performance plan targets, the company said.

For Narasimhan, the 11.22 million Swiss franc pay package represents an 8% percent increase from his 2020 total of 10.38 million Swiss francs. For Schwan, his total pay grew 4% in 2021.

Where Narasimhan's and Schwan's 2021 pays rank among their peers remains to be seen, as Novartis and Roche are typically the first companies to report exec compensation among big pharma companies. Along with their full-year results issued this week, the companies published annual reports with executive and board member compensation information.

But, if last year's results hold true, the pay packages wouldn't rank among the best-paid chief execs in the industry. Regeneron's CEO Len Schleifer took home that distinction last year with $135 million in total compensation, and BioMarin CEO Jean-Jacques Bienaimé rounded out Fierce Pharma's annual top 15 ranking with more than $18 million in total compensation. The Roche and Novartis CEOs didn't make the list in 2019, either. As for Big Pharma revenue rankings, Roche and Novartis ranked second and third among their peers last year, respectively. 

Ver