Health care CEOs dialed back their pay in 2023. They still made $3.5 billion

Health care stocks stumbled compared with the rest of the market in 2023. Companies missed their profit targets. Some CEOs even lost their bonuses.

But the biggest names in health care still made $3.5 billion combined last year, compared with $4 billion in 2022. The average chief executive brought home $11 million, while the median was $4.1 million. Those figures compared to an average of $13 million and median of $4.3 million in 2022.

Even in a down year, the median health care CEO made 51 times the median American household income, which was around $81,000 in 2023. The heads of pharmaceutical companies and medical device firms continued to sit at the top as their patented products reaped the biggest windfalls. 

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