𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

AstraZeneca has revealed boss Pascal Soriot picked up £17.7 million in pay and bonuses in 2025 and could see his package increase to close to £20 million this year.

The drug maker’s annual report showed its chief executive’s total pay lifted by more than 6% from £16.6 million in 2024 after he was awarded annual bonuses of £4.3 million and long-term shares worth £11.6 million in 2025.

It comes after the firm saw full-year earnings leap 40% and as shares have jumped higher in the past 12 months.

The report showed Mr Soriot could also enjoy another bumper pay rise in 2026, with a maximum possible pay deal of £19.6 million if he meets all his targets, which could see him take home a £4.3 million annual bonus, a £2.1 million share grant and a maximum potential £11.6 million in long-term share awards, on top of a £1.6 million salary.

Earlier this month, the FTSE 100 firm reported pre-tax profits of 12.4 billion US dollars (£9.2 billion) for 2025, up from 8.69 billion dollars (£6.43 billion) in 2024, boosted by a 49% jump in the fourth quarter.

It also expects further growth in earnings over the year ahead as it continues to put faith in strong demand for its cancer treatments.

The Anglo-Swedish group is also pushing further into the US and China and investing in increasingly popular weight-loss medication.

But it has pulled back on its investment in the UK, last year cancelling a planned £450 million expansion of its vaccine facility in Speke, near Liverpool.

It also ditched plans for a £200 million investment into research at its Cambridge headquarters.

Mr Soriot has been consistently named the UK’s highest paid chief executive of a FTSE 100 firm in past years.

Last year he was paid 176 times the average pay for a worker at AstraZeneca, the annual report showed.