AstraZeneca is giving Pascal Soriot a pay raise as the longtime CEO weathered a year of “significant geopolitical uncertainty” to advance the British pharma toward an ambitious 2030 goal.
For 2025, Soriot’s realized pay amounted to 17.7 million pounds sterling ($23.9 million), a 6.4% increase from the prior-year level, thanks in part to the appreciation of AZ’s share price, according to the company's annual report published Tuesday.
The 6.4% rate was based on a recalculation of Soriot’s 2024 long-term incentive payout using the updated company stock price toward the end of 2025. Year-over-year growth of Soriot’s compensation would have been 20% if using the original 14.7 million-pound base as disclosed last year.
The pay raise comes as Soriot led AZ to deliver what the company’s board described as “exceptional growth and another set of strong results” across financial and R&D markers, according to the annual report.
Still, Soriot’s 2025 pay was lower than the roughly $32.4 million that Novartis is awarding its CEO, Vas Narasimhan, M.D., after a record year.
The majority of Soriot’s realized pay, or 11.6 million pounds to be exact, is comprised of long-term incentive awards for the 2023-2025 review cycle. There, Soriot secured the maximum payout, save for one metric—total shareholder return (TSR).
During the three-year period, AZ ranked sixth within a peer group that includes 18 other pharma companies across the U.S., Europe and Japan, failing to place into the upper quartile, which would have triggered a full payout under the TSR metric. For that reason alone, vesting of Soriot’s long-term awards came 3 percentage points short of the highest possible level.
For the 2025-27 cycle, AZ granted Soriot long-term share options worth about 13.1 million pounds last year.
As to performance during 2025, which determined Soriot’s annual bonus, the chief executive scored a windfall of nearly $4.3 million, which represents 92% of the maximum amount allowed in that category.
AZ’s revenue last year reached $58.7 billion, while $60 billion would have given Soriot a 200% bonus payout under that metric. In 2024, AZ unveiled an ambitious goal to achieve $80 billion in annual revenue by 2030, a target that Soriot remains committed to as of the company's latest investor update.
AZ also came close to awarding a maximum bonus payout for Soriot, related to the number of “regulatory events” in 2025, including the submission and approvals of new molecules and major indication expansions of existing meds. AZ counted 69 events, when 70 would have qualified for the maximum payment.
Beyond the numbers, AZ credited Soriot for inking “groundbreaking agreements with government and policy makers which have supported the strategic business and policy priorities.” Last year, AZ was among the first large pharma companies to have reached a “most favored nation” drug-pricing deal with the Trump administration.
The AZ helmsman also engaged with “the Chinese government and science leaders reinforcing AstraZeneca’s long-term commitment to China,” according to the annual report. These discussions culminated in a $15 billion investment that AZ recently pledged to China through 2030.
This year will be critical for AZ, as over 20 anticipated late-stage readouts are tipped to give Soriot more clarity on whether his $80 billion revenue goal is achievable.