October 15, 2013 (Vol. 33, No. 18)
Topping the List Are Officers, Directors, and Investors of Mature Companies
Last year, GEN once again began assembling a list of the industry’s top stockholders after a multiyear hiatus. This year’s list contains 40 executives from publicly traded biopharma firms as well as tool/technology companies, ranked by the total value of their shares of common stock.
Unlike last year’s list, all categories of shares of common stock were listed—not only the value of their shares of common stock as of the day they were tallied and recorded in filings, but also shares of common stock that were exercisable or became so within a set period of time from the record date. The change reflects the fact that numerous companies recorded the total number of shares of common stock for their largest shareholders in order to present a more complete picture of who owns what percentage of the companies’ stock. The change also explains why the top three on this list could better be described as molecular billionaires.
The results showed that the wealthiest molecular millionaires were officers, directors, former officers and directors, or investors—typically from companies with products on the market, and the profits that follow. Several companies in that category could boast of having multiple executives, directors, or investors on this year’s list: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals led biotechs—and all companies, for that matter—with seven, followed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals (four); Bio-Rad Laboratories and Danaher (three each); and Bristol-Myers Squibb, Life Technologies, and Mettler Toledo (two each).
The results reflect how good a year 2012 was for Regeneron and Vertex. In its proxy report, Regeneron noted the company surpassed its goals for last year, among them continued successful commercialization of Eylea (aflibercept) injection (including launch following FDA approval for a new macular edema indication) and FDA approval of Zaltrap (ziv-aflibercept) injection for IV infusion for use with Folfiri for metastatic colorectal cancer. Vertex launched Kalydeco for cystic fibrosis shortly after it gained FDA approval on August 31, 2012 and quickly racked up $171.6 million in sales, a figure expected to rise significantly this year.
Big pharmas have only a small presence on this list, with only five executives and/or investors from four such companies appearing. Ranking highest among big pharmas, at No. 14, was not a current pharma executive but a retired chairman. The CEOs of two other pharma giants—Joseph Jimenez of Novartis and Ian C. Read of Pfizer—narrowly missed the top 40.
For a more complete listing with notes, click here.
Table. Top 40 Molecular Millionaires
