AHF: Gilead’s CEO Martin Joins “$50 Million Club”
<0> AIDS Healthcare FoundationAssociate Director of CommunicationsWork: 323-308-1834Cell: 323-377-4312 </0>
On the heels of news that HIV/AIDS drug maker has joined the “$50 million club” , the nation’s largest HIV/AIDS nonprofit medical provider, criticized Martin and the company for providing him with such an ostentatious compensation package while the U.S. remains in the grips of an HIV/AIDS drug funding crisis. 1,800 Americans living with HIV/AIDS in nine states are currently on waiting lists to receive lifesaving medications through state the safety net for low-income people in need of HIV/AIDS treatment. A key reason for the waiting lists is that high drug prices have made it so that fewer patients can be treated with the same amount of funding. Gilead manufactures the most commonly prescribed HIV/AIDS drugs, as well as some of the highest priced ones.
According to USA Today ( by Gary Strauss): “Martin's $54.5 million includes a stock grant worth $5.5 million and stock options valued at $5.8 million. Martin, 60, also exercised previously awarded options valued at $36 million and received vested shares worth $2.9 million. Martin's 2010 compensation was valued at about $53.2 million, including $35.7 million from exercising stock options.”
Gilead’s Martin joins CEOs for Disney, Occidental Petroleum and Starbucks in an elite club of top executive earners. He was also recently named the 10 highest paid CEO in the U.S. according by Forbes Magazine.
“It’s outrageous for Gilead’s CEO to be one of the highest paid executives in the nation, making tens of millions of dollars by selling lifesaving medications at such high prices that 1,800 Americans in desperate need of medications cannot access them,” said , AHF’s President. “People living with HIV/AIDS, their families, friends and communities should be up in arms over this sort of corporate greed in the face of life-or-death need. So too should taxpayers, who are almost directly responsible for placing wads of cash in Martin’s pockets. It’s the taxpayers who foot the bill for government health care programs—like state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs—a significant contributor to Gilead’s profit margin.”
(AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to more than 176,756 individuals in 27 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: , find us on Facebook: and follow us on Twitter: .