Struggling British drugmaker AstraZeneca is giving its new chief executive Pascal Soriot £4 million (€5 million) compensation for loss of long-term incentives from his previous employer Roche.
Mr Soriot will get the award in shares and will have to wait up to eight years to receive the full amount.
The pharmaceutical company, which is battling to turn itself around as key drugs lose patent protection, said Mr Soriot’s base salary will be £1.1 million a year.
The chief executive is also eligible for a target annual bonus of 100 per cent of base salary and a target expected value for annual long-term incentive awards of 250 per cent. Mr Soriot also gets £991,080 for loss of his 2012 bonus at Roche, which he is required to invest in AstraZeneca shares.
The scale of the task facing Mr Soriot was highlighted last week when the group reported a 19 per cent fall in third-quarter sales.
Mr Soriot said that buying in products would be an important way of rebuilding the pipeline and he promised to update investors on his strategic plans at the end of January. – (Reuters)
