Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos’ 2021 pay dropped about $1 million from 2020. Still, the helmsman got off light considering the incredibly rocky rollout of Biogen’s controversial Alzheimer’s disease drug, Aduhelm.
The chief executive last year pocketed around $1.53 million in salary, plus an almost identical amount in cash incentive compensation, Biogen said in its proxy filing published Friday. Change in pension value netted Vounatsos another $494,290, while the CEO made $424,763 in “other” compensation.
The biggest contributor to Vounatsos’ 2021 haul was the CEO’s stock award, which totaled $14,084,314. For comparison, Vounatsos took home $13.88 million in 2020 stock awards and $12.35 million in 2019.
Overall, Biogen awarded its CEO a total 2021 pay package worth about $17.69 million.
2021 was no doubt a challenging year for Biogen. During that time, Vounatsos “excelled” in leading Biogen toward its financial and business development goals, the company said as part of its rationale for the CEO’s pay. Vounatsos also contributed to the company’s multiple sclerosis business, helped oversee the continued launch of spinal muscular atrophy med Spinraza around the globe and expanded Biogen’s biosimilars business.
As for Aduhelm, Biogen noted that Vounatsos “[s]upported the filing of applications to the FDA, the EMA and the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for marketing approval of aducanumab as well as the preparation for the potential launch of aducanumab.” Aducanumab is the amyloid-targeting antibody’s generic moniker.
While Aduhelm once bore high sales expectations, the drug brought in a slim $1 million in 2021’s fourth quarter and just $3 million for all of 2021.
More recently, the drug’s trajectory was blunted in the U.S. by a stifling coverage plan from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, which limits the use of Aduhelm and other meds like it to patients in certain clinical trials.
Last week, meanwhile, Biogen said it had scrapped its Aduhelm filing in the EU after talks with regulators suggested an approval was unlikely.
Despite months of turbulence at Biogen, the company’s CEO has come out the other side of 2021 with a pay package to rival many of his peers at other major pharmas.
His compensation lags right behind that of Seagen’s Clay Siegall, AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot and Moderna’s Stéphane Bancel, who each collected pay packages worth between $18 million and $19 million in 2021.
Meanwhile, Vounatsos is slightly ahead of Vertex CEO Reshma Kewalramani, who’s compensation shot up to $15.19 million last year.