Cephalon pays CEO more than hefty rivals

Which drug exec gets paid 140 percent more than the median among his peers? Hint: His company makes the anti-narcolepsy med Provigil. And he made a cool $13.5 million last year (the AP says $16 million). That paycheck included a $1.2 million salary, $2.2 million in bonus, and $10.1 million in stock and options.

If you said Cephalon CEO Frank Baldino (photo), you're correct. Baldino beat out Big Pharma chiefs Jeff Kindler ($9.5 million, according to the WSJ) and Bristol-Myers Squibb's Jim Cornelius ($11.3 million). That's saying something, considering the fact that Cephalon's $1.8 billion in revenues is dwarfed by Pfizer's $48.6 billion and Bristol's $19 billion.

Actually, Baldino qualified for an even bigger bonus, the company said, but its compensation committee decided to shave a bit off the top because of Cephalon's recent $425 million settlement with the U.S. Attorney's office in Philadelphia. The company was under investigation for off-label marketing violations.

- read the item at the WSJ Health Blog
- check out the AP's figures here

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