The median salaries for Alexion employees increased to nearly $224,000 in 2018. The previous year the median salary was $167,000.
For the Alexion Pharmaceuticals employees who made the move from Connecticut to Boston last year, the decision was a pretty good one for their bank accounts. Since the move, the median compensation for employees has jumped to nearly $224,000.
Alexion disclosed the salary information in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its May shareholders meeting. The jump in employee compensation was first reported by The Boston Business Journal. For 2018, the median compensation for Alexion employees was $223,882. That was a significant jump from 2017’s median compensation of $167,000.
The jump in the median salary of Alexion’s employees was due to a number of factors, including a change in the employee base from the move to Boston, as well as individual bonuses are driven by the company’s strong financial performance last year,” a company spokesperson told the Business Journal.
While the employees’ compensation jumped, the SEC filing also indicated that the salaries and total compensation for Alexion’s leadership team increased as well. Chief Executive Officer Ludwig Hantson received total compensation of $16,490,250 for 2018. That’s a 74-to-one ratio for Hantson to the median compensation of employees, the company said in the filing.
Hantson was tapped as CEO of Alexion in 2017 after serving as CEO of Baxalta. His 2017 agreement with the company included an annual base salary of $1,200,000. Paul Clancy, the company’s chief financial officer, received a base salary of $900,000 and Brian Goff, the company’s chief commercial officer, has a base salary of $695,250, which is also the same base salary John Orloff, the company’s head of research and development received.
In its filing, Alexion called 2018 a transformational year. In December, Alexion snagged approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Ultomiris, a treatment for the rare blood disorder paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH). Ultomiris is an improved version of Soliris. Alexion also formed a number of strategic alliances, including an agreement with Dicerna Pharmaceuticals on the development of an RNAi therapeutic for the treatment of complement-mediated diseases. Those partnerships have continued into 2019. In February, the company announced agreements with Affibody AB and Zealand Pharma.
Alexion also noted in its filing that over the past 18 months the organization has gone through significant changes, including a change in its leadership team, the move to Boston and the hiring of more than 1,000 new employees, about one-third of its total workforce. The company also shifted its developmental strategy from an ultra-rare disease to a rare disease-focused company to broaden and diversify the patient populations.
“Our renewed organization is dedicated to building and maintaining a high integrity culture centered around our patients,” Alexion said in the filing.
