Regeneron's Top Execs Get a Huge Pay Cut in 2016 But It's Still More Than Most of Us Have Ever Dreamed of

Regeneron's Top Execs Get a Huge Pay Cut in 2016, But It's Still More Than Most of Us Have Ever Dreamed of April 26, 2017
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. – Regeneron slashed compensation for its top executives in 2016, but total earnings for its chief executive officer and chief of research and development were still hefty checks.

According to a proxy statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this week, CEO Len Schleifer received total compensation of $28.3 million last year, down from $47.4 million in 2015. Schleifer’s base salary was $1.242 million, but when factored into option awards and other compensation, his total earnings were quite significant.

George Yancopoulos, chief scientific officer at Regeneron took home $27.7 million last year, down from $40.3 million in 2015. His base salary for 2016 was $1.05 million, but like Schleifer, his total earnings soared when stock options and other compensations were factored into the equation.

In 2015, Regeneron announced it was cutting perks and expenses for Schleifer and Yancopoulos, part of a move aimed at simplifying executive compensation packets. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Regeneron said the benefits “were no longer consistent with our overall compensation program.” Perks the company said it was eliminating at the time included car allowances, golf club memberships, tax and financial advisory services and more.

In 2014, Schleifer received total compensation of $41,965, 424, which was an increase of more than $5 million from 2013. Yancopoulos took home total compensation of $35,506,811 in 2014, up more than $4 million from 2013. For years Yancopoulos has been one of the highest paid researchers in the industry. Endpoints noted that in 2012 Yancopoulos took home $81.3 million. Schleifer has maintained that he needs to keep Yancopoulos financially satisfied in order to keep him at Regeneron.

“I wanted to make sure that he had absolutely no reason to go someplace else or go out on his own, because we can pay him hundreds of millions of dollars or we can buy his drugs for billions of dollars when he’s at another company. So it’s a lot cheaper this way,” Schleifer said in a previous interview with FierceBiotech, according to Endpoints.

It was unclear why the New York-based company cut the salaries of its two top earners over the past year. Certainly there have been questions and concerns raised over executive compensation packages. In its proxy statement, Regeneron said it regularly reviews compensation and benefits programs, but provided no real explanation for the cuts.

Shares of Regeneron were down about 30 percent in 2016. Over the course of that year, the company did see some setbacks as it related to some of its drug programs. In October, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration spurred sarilumab, the rheumatoid arthritis drug Regeneron was co-developing with French drugmaker Sanofi. The FDA objected to the drug due to certain deficiencies identified during a routine good manufacturing practice inspection of the Sanofi Le Trait facility in France where sarilumab is filled and finished. Sanofi said it was addressing the issues cited by the FDA.

While that drug has been stymied for a while, Regeneron and Sanofi were able to secure approval for Dupizent for the treatment of adults with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis.

In addition to Schleifer and Yancopoulos, other Regeneron executives saw their total earnings cut in 2016. Chief Financial Officer Robert Landry saw his earnings drop from $8.2 million in 2015 to $5.1 million in 2016. Neil Stahl, executive vice president of research and development, saw his salary decline from $18.3 million to $10.9 million.

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