S&P 500 pharma CEOs took home $18.5M median pay in 2015

The CEOs of the 14 biotech and pharmaceutical companies included in Standard & Poor's 500 that held their roles for the full 2015 fiscal year earned median compensation packages of $18.5 million for that year, according to USA Today analysis of data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The median pay for pharmaceutical and biotech company CEOs was 71 percent higher than the median compensation of $10.8 million taken in by the S&P 500 executives across all industries in 2015, according to the report, which cited analysis by Equilar.

As significant price hikes of prescription drugs and other pharmaceutical products garner increasing criticism, compensation for CEOs running these companies is also subject to scrutiny.

For instance, Mylan, which is currently at the center of a controversy over a 500 percent price increase for its EpiPen, a treatment for severe allergic reactions, paid CEO Heather Bresch $18.9 million in 2015, a 109 percent increase from 2013, according to the report.

Leonard Schleifer, CEO of biotech firm Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, was the highest paid pharmaceutical company CEO in 2015, taking home a compensation package valued at $47.5 million. Mr. Schleifer, who has served as the company's CEO since 1988, received a 13 percent raise in his total pay from 2014 to 2015, USA Today reported.

While pharma CEOs average higher pay packages than executives in other industries, 2015 was not a year of high raises for them. Median pay for CEOs at the 13 biotech and pharmaceutical companies in the S&P 500 who served in their roles in both 2014 and 2015 fell about 19 percent on average, a steeper drop than the 5 percent decrease seen by S&P 500 CEOs in other industries, according to the report.

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