AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot’s pay rises to £17.7m

The Guardian - World NewsEN 2 min read 100% complete by Julia KolleweFebruary 24, 2026 at 03:01 PM

AI Summary

medium article 2 min

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot's total compensation rose 6.4% to £17.7m in the past year, driven by a £1.5m salary, £4.3m in bonuses, and £11.6m in share bonuses, reflecting a 32% increase in AstraZeneca's share price and strong financial performance. Despite this, AstraZeneca cancelled a £450m expansion of its vaccine site in Speke and halted a £200m research investment in Cambridge due to a dispute with the government over drug pricing. Soriot is in line for a further pay increase this year, potentially reaching £19.6m. His high pay has previously triggered shareholder rebellions, despite the company's improved financial performance. Since joining AstraZeneca in 2012, Soriot has rebuilt the company's drug pipeline and fended off a takeover bid from Pfizer.

Key Entities & Roles

Key Player Opposition Context

Roche 30% Peter Dilnot 30% Liverpool 30% Pfizer 30% High Pay Centre 40% Cambridge 40% Speke 40% National Health Service (NHS) 50% London Stock Exchange 50% United Kingdom 70% Pascal Soriot ×690% AstraZeneca ×695%

Keywords

executive compensation 90% pascal soriot 80% astrazeneca 80% pay rise 70% pharmaceutical company 60% share price 50% annual bonuses 50% drug pricing 40% financial performance 40%

Sentiment Analysis

Negative

Score: -0.20

Source Transparency

Source

The Guardian - World News

Classification Confidence

90%

Geographic Perspective

United Kingdom

This article was automatically classified using rule-based analysis.

Topic Connections

Explore how the topics in this article connect to other news stories

No topic relationship data available yet. This graph will appear once topic relationships have been computed.

executive compensation pascal soriot astrazeneca pay rise pharmaceutical company share price annual bonuses drug pricing financial performance

Explore Full Topic Graph

Find Similar Articles

AI-Powered

Discover articles with similar content using semantic similarity analysis.