Double-digit sales growth is expected again this year, and Amgen’s longtime helmer Robert Bradway remains firmly in the upper echelons of biopharmaceutical CEO pay, although he won’t reach the levels seen by some of his peers in 2025.
Mr. Bradway will receive a slight increase in his overall salary for the 2025 job, to nearly $24.7 million, according to a proxy filing (PDF) issued by Amgen this week.
The CEO, who will mark his 14th year at the top of Amgen in May, will receive another significant pay increase in 2024, increasing his total compensation by 8% to $24.4 million.
Mr. Bradway’s total compensation in 2025 would represent a 160-to-1 pay ratio for Amgen’s CEO compared to the pay of the “median staff member,” according to the filing.
Breaking down the various factors, Bradway’s salary last year came out to be approximately $1.93 million, slightly more than his base salary the previous year.
The majority of the CEO’s 2025 compensation is related to stock and option compensation, with Bradway’s long-term incentive (LTI) stock compensation amounting to $18 million annually, the same amount as his 2024 LTI compensation.
The company followed Mr. Bradway’s LTI award in recognition of his more than 10-year tenure with the company, as well as the CEO’s commitment to the company’s goals, according to a representative.
In further streamlining CEO compensation, Amgen’s compensation committee noted that the company met or exceeded its 2025 targets for revenue growth, net income, early pipeline progress, clinical trial and regulatory strategies, as well as workforce transformation and technology onboarding goals.
Mr. Bradway was awarded an additional $3.9 million through Amgen’s cash incentive pay framework, plus just over $860,000 in the company’s “other compensation” category.
Amgen reported in February that its overall sales rose 10% last year to $36.8 billion, which the company credited in part to record sales driven by a whopping 18 products.
The company pointed to strong sales growth for its cholesterol treatment Repatha, eye treatment Tepezza, and anti-inflammatory biologic Tezspire, indicating it was generating profits across its various therapeutic areas. Conversely, some of the company’s key biologics face competition from biosimilars, and sales are expected to continue declining in 2026.
Meanwhile, Amgen took several strategic steps late last year to better position itself for 2026. Among them was a drug pricing agreement with the White House in December that gave drug companies tariff exemptions for a period of time in exchange for lower prices and DTC sales commitments on certain products.
Separately, the same month the company won a key FDA green light for its drug Uplizna (inebilizumab) for systemic myasthenia gravis, igniting competition from Argenx and J&J in an increasingly crowded treatment field this year.
Mr. Bradway’s compensation ranks him relatively well compared to his biopharma companies, but his 2025 award will fall short of what some U.S. drug company CEOs receive.
So far, Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks has unsurprisingly earned the highest compensation in 2025, rising to a whopping $36.7 million.
Other top U.S. drugmakers in the $30 million-plus salary club include Johnson & Johnson’s Joaquin Duato, whose compensation rose to $32.8 million in 2025, and AbbVie’s Robert Michael, who collected about $32.5 million in his second year on the job.
Bradway’s compensation in 2025 was also lower than Gilead President Daniel O’Day ($28.4 million) and Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla ($27.6 million), but higher than the leaders of Moderna, GSK and AstraZeneca.
