How do stockholders allow these top crooks to siphon off billions in excessive, bloated, criminal salaries? From FierceBiopharma:
1. Report: Roche, Novartis among Swiss companies with highest pay gaps
By Arlene Weintraub Comment | Forward | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
Roche CEO Severin Schwan
The salary differences between top executives and the lowest-paid employees widened at 18 large Swiss companies last year, with pharma giants Roche ($RHHBY) and Novartis ($NVS) ranking high on the list of top offenders. That's the conclusion of a new report from Travail Suisse, an organization of trade unions.
The Travail Suisse report reveals that the top earners at Roche and Novartis are paid at least 200 times more than the lowest-paid employees, Bloomberg reports. That put them in the same league as Swiss giants Nestlé, UBS ($UBS) and Lindt & Spruengli when it comes to pay inequality, the report said.
Executive pay has been a hot topic in Switzerland, exemplified by a 2013 brouhaha over Novartis's plan to hand outgoing chairman Daniel Vasella a $78 million non-compete agreement. Novartis aborted that plan, just in time for a Swiss vote to limit executive pay.
And Swiss voters made it clear they would not tolerate so-called "fat-cat" pay packages in the future. A majority voted to outlaw signing bonuses, golden handshakes, and golden parachutes, and to give shareholders power over annual executive compensation.
The CEOs of Switzerland's two largest pharma companies certainly took home rich pay packages last year. Roche's Severin Schwan earned about $13.4 million, even as the company's massive restructuring claimed 1,000 jobs. And Novartis's Joe Jimenez took home $14.2 million, as the CEO battled against a declining vaccines business, quality-control problems at a U.S. plant, and the loss of patent protection on its blockbuster blood-pressure drug Diovan.
Novartis Chairman Joerg Reinhardt
As Novartis' new chairman Joerg Reinhardt took office, the company promised a new era in executive pay; board member Pierre Landolt hinted at "significant reductions." After its latest shareholder meeting, Novartis said investors had approved reduced compensation for board members in 2015 and that it would look at ways to "better align" board compensation to that of other healthcare companies.
Last November, Swiss voters gave the thumbs-down to a proposal that would have limited CEO pay to no more than 12 times the salary of the lowest-paid employee. Travail Suisse's new report could very well re-open the debate over whether more needs to be done to keep a lid on rich CEO pay packages in Switzerland. "The fat-cat initiative certainly won't solve the problem," the organization said in a statement on its website, according to Bloomberg. "In the first year after its adoption the pay gap of the corporate management widened almost all over the country."
Drug prices plus low reimbursements force cancer docs to sell out
By Tracy Staton Comment | Forward | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
Rising cancer drug prices aren't just alarming to payers. They're squeezing oncologists, too, at a time when doctors are paid less to administer drugs--to the point where they're selling out to hospitals.
Why should drugmakers care whether cancer docs practice under the umbrella of a healthcare system rather than treating patients independently? Because many hospitals pay less for cancer drugs. Plus, still-independent doctors may be swayed more than ever by rebate and discount offers, because their spread on oncology meds has shrunk dramatically.
Why should everyone else care? Because the overall cost of cancer care through hospitals is much higher, as the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics said in a recent report on the oncology market. "Since hospitals incur higher costs and overhead for the delivery of care, their reimbursement levels for the administration of drugs are higher than those for physician offices," IMS Health said in a statement.
And as The New York Times reports, the exact same drugs are reimbursed at up to three times the amount per dose at hospitals than at private oncology practices. For instance, according to the NYT, hospitals can get almost $10,000 per dose of Roche's ($RHHBY) breast cancer drug Perjeta (pertuzumab), while independent oncologists collect somewhere around $4,000.
That's because the overall cost of operating a hospital is higher, including uncompensated care for poor and uninsured patients, the facilities say. But many hospitals pay less for their supplies of drugs. About one-third of hospitals participate in the 340B discount program--designed to encourage care for the poor and uninsured--which requires drugmakers to supply their cancer meds at about half the usual cost. These 340B hospitals "have expanded their oncology presence," IMS Health said.
Other hospitals are able to negotiate better prices because they're buying in bulk. Oncologists get better deals if they buy in quantity, too. But because cancer drugs are increasingly expensive, it's difficult to finance bulk purchasing. Oncologists have to pay up front for their drug supplies, billing their cost plus profit as the drugs are used.
And more expensive therapies are on their way. A new generation of "game-changing" immunotherapies is coming to market, including Bristol-Myers Squibb's ($BMY) Opdivo and Merck's ($MRK) Keytruda, with mid-six-figure price tags.
Drug prices plus low reimbursements force cancer docs to sell out
By Tracy Staton Comment | Forward | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
Rising cancer drug prices aren't just alarming to payers. They're squeezing oncologists, too, at a time when doctors are paid less to administer drugs--to the point where they're selling out to hospitals.
Why should drugmakers care whether cancer docs practice under the umbrella of a healthcare system rather than treating patients independently? Because many hospitals pay less for cancer drugs. Plus, still-independent doctors may be swayed more than ever by rebate and discount offers, because their spread on oncology meds has shrunk dramatically.
Why should everyone else care? Because the overall cost of cancer care through hospitals is much higher, as the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics said in a recent report on the oncology market. "Since hospitals incur higher costs and overhead for the delivery of care, their reimbursement levels for the administration of drugs are higher than those for physician offices," IMS Health said in a statement.
And as The New York Times reports, the exact same drugs are reimbursed at up to three times the amount per dose at hospitals than at private oncology practices. For instance, according to the NYT, hospitals can get almost $10,000 per dose of Roche's ($RHHBY) breast cancer drug Perjeta (pertuzumab), while independent oncologists collect somewhere around $4,000.
That's because the overall cost of operating a hospital is higher, including uncompensated care for poor and uninsured patients, the facilities say. But many hospitals pay less for their supplies of drugs. About one-third of hospitals participate in the 340B discount program--designed to encourage care for the poor and uninsured--which requires drugmakers to supply their cancer meds at about half the usual cost. These 340B hospitals "have expanded their oncology presence," IMS Health said.
Other hospitals are able to negotiate better prices because they're buying in bulk. Oncologists get better deals if they buy in quantity, too. But because cancer drugs are increasingly expensive, it's difficult to finance bulk purchasing. Oncologists have to pay up front for their drug supplies, billing their cost plus profit as the drugs are used.
And more expensive therapies are on their way. A new generation of "game-changing" immunotherapies is coming to market, including Bristol-Myers Squibb's ($BMY) Opdivo and Merck's ($MRK) Keytruda, with mid-six-figure price tags.