Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day saw another rise in his pay in 2024, reflecting the steadily upward trajectory of the company since he took the reins in 2019.
O’Day received a compensation package of $23.7 million last year, which was a 5% boost on his $22.6 million pay from 2023. The California drugmaker revealed the compensation for its executives in its 2025 proxy statement in advance of its annual meeting of stockholders.
Few executives in the industry have seen their pay increase as steadily over the years as O'Day. He collected $19 million in 2020, $19.2 million in 2021 and $21.6 million in 2022.
O’Day came to Gilead after three decades at Roche, including the last three years as its pharma chief. O’Day made $29.1 million in his first year at Gilead, with $14.2 million covering the golden parachute compensation he forfeited by leaving Roche.
O’Day was brought in to boost Gilead’s oncology portfolio. While the company’s fortunes there have been mixed, it has remained an HIV powerhouse. Since O’Day took over, Gilead’s market cap has risen from $83 billion to its present $138 billion.
After small revenue declines in each of the previous two years, Gilead had a 6% uptick in sales in 2024 to $28.8 billion, thanks largely to the success of its HIV products.
O’Day’s 2024 package included a base salary of $1.8 million, equity awards of $16.5 million, a bonus of $4 million and other compensation of $1.3 million.
Gilead added that O’Day received 97 times the compensation for its median employee, which was $244,296.
Among Gilead’s other execs, Chief Financial Officer Andrew Dickinson received $8.1 million, matching his figure from 2023. Chief Commercial Officer Johanna Mercier collected $8.6 million, a slight increase from her 2023 pay. General Counsel Deborah Telman received $6.1 million, up from $5.3 million in 2023.
Additionally, in its proxy report, Gilead characterized the termination of chief medical officer Merdad Parsey, M.D., Ph.D., as both “involuntary” and “without cause.” Without explaining why, the company revealed Parsey’s departure in July of last year. The announcement came after it suffered costly defeats in phase 3 trials investigating Troveldy to treat bladder cancer and non-small cell lung cancer.
Gilead said it paid Parsey a severance of $3.4 million in addition to his $8.1 million compensation package for 2024. The annual pay was a decline for Parsey, who made $9 million in 2022 and $8.4 million in 2023.
Dietmar Berger, M.D., Ph.D., took over as chief medical officer at the start of this year, after serving for five years at Sanofi. Parsey has continued as a consultant through the first quarter of this year.