AstraZeneca’s boss was handed another £14.7million last year – taking his total earnings at the drugs giant to more than £150million.
Pascal Soriot, 65, topped up his basic salary of £1.8million with extras that included a bonus of £3.5million and share awards totalling £9.4million in 2024.
The award took Frenchman’s total pay at the pharmaceutical group to around £150.3million since he became chief executive in October 2012.
The latest payday came after a year which saw AstraZeneca become the first company on the London stock market to reach a value of £200billion, with its stock price hitting a record high of 13,276p in September.
Although the shares have fallen back since then, they have more than quadrupled on his watch.
The firm also posted strong results for the year. Earlier this month, it reported a pre-tax profit of £7billion for 2024, a 38 per cent increase on the prior year as revenues climbed 21 per cent to £43.6billion.
Pay deal: Pascal Soriot, 65, topped up his basic salary of £1.8m with extras that included a bonus of £3.5m and share awards totalling £9.4m in 2024
But despite the share price surge, the pay packet was lower than the record £17.4million the chief executive was awarded in 2023, making him one of the best-paid chief executive’s on the FTSE 100.
That year he received around £4.7million more than Dame Emma Walmsley, boss of rival UK pharma giant GSK.
But despite his success, Soriot’s pay packet has attracted controversy over its size.
Last April, AstraZeneca suffered a large investor rebellion at its annual general meeting when just over a third of shareholders opposed plans to increase his potential maximum payout to £18.7million.
But others have argued the opposite. Last year, GQG Partners, a major AstraZeneca investor, said Soriot was ‘massively underpaid’ compared to the strong performance of the business under his watch.
Dr Sean Conroy, Shore Capital’s healthcare analyst, said: ‘I think Pascal’s track record speaks for itself. And I would add that there is still ample opportunity to see further appreciation in the share price.
‘If we want to keep leading pharmaceutical firms listed in London that requires us retaining the highest-performing leaders. Pay packages have to be competitive to do that.’
Details of his latest pay package came after the drugmaker abandoned plans to build a £450million vaccine plant near Liverpool after a row with the Government over the amount of state aid on offer for the project.
It is understood the previous Conservative government had offered AstraZeneca £90million to press ahead with the investment, only to see the new Labour administration seek to reduce the offer to £40million.
And while it is paring back plans for UK investment, AstraZeneca faces growing problems in its key China market after the head of its business in the country, Leon Wang, was arrested by local authorities alongside several other employees.
Wang’s arrest was followed by other revelations, including that more than 100 former sales staff in China had been sentenced to jail time in a large medical insurance fraud case.
The company has also been warned that it faces a possible fine by Chinese officials in the city of Shenzhen relating to around £713,000 of unpaid import taxes. If found liable, AstraZeneca could face a fine of up to £3.6million.
China is a key and growing market for the drugmaker and accounted for £1.1billion in sales last year. Although this is still well behind the US, its largest market which raked in £5.2billion in revenues in 2024.
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Read More: The £150m man: That’s what AstraZeneca boss has been paid since taking the helm in 2012!