The 20 Top Paid Women Executives in Biopharma

Following is a list of 20 women executives holding top positions with biotech or pharmaceutical companies for at least part of 2012, ranked by their “total compensation” last year. Total compensation goes beyond salary to include bonuses, stock awards, stock option awards, nonequity incentive plan compensation, and all other sources of compensation. For each woman ranked, the list offers 2012 and 2011 compensation, the percentage change between the amounts, and their position (if ranked) on last year’s top paid women in biopharma list, published by GEN on July 31, 2012.

The salaries for the women executives ranked on this list trail significantly the pay levels seen in the CEO list, but only in part because this list includes many women in executive positions below CEO. The four women CEOs on this list—Heather Bresch of Mylan, Martine Rothblatt of United Therapeutics, Michelle Dipp, M.D., Ph.D., of OvaScience, and Robin Smith of NeoStem—all received less in compensation than every one of the top 15 CEOs appearing on GEN’s list of top biopharma CEOs ranked by pay.

As with GEN’s recent CEO compensation list, this list shows the continuing leveling of the industry between traditional “big” pharma and biotech. Six of the top 10 women executives on this list work at pharmas; the rest, at biotechs. However, positions 11–20 on the list were filled entirely by biotech executives, which reflects another reality: that pharmas are still transitioning from years of their executive ranks being dominated by men.

Another result of note: Of the 20 women on this list, 10 held positions at the executive or senior vice presidential level, and seven of those had responsibilities that included that of general counsel. One woman was a chief medical officer, and another a chief commercial officer.