Glaxo May Need to Boost Pay to Lure U.S. CEO Candidates

  • Witty is lowest paid among world's top pharma chief executives
  • Pfizer CEO Read earned twice as much as Witty last year
Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg, Photo Illustration by Tom Hall/Bloomberg
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GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s board may need to loosen the purse strings to attract a new chief executive officer with U.S. industry experience.

Andrew Witty, who said last month he would step down next March after almost a decade at Glaxo’s helm, earned 6.7 million pounds ($9.6 million) last year -- half of the amount made by Ian Read, chief of U.S. rival Pfizer Inc. His pay trails even that of John Lechleiter, chairman and CEO of smaller drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co.