7 August 2018Americas

LSIPR 50 2018: Richard Gonzalez

Name: Richard Gonzalez

Organisation: AbbVie

Position: CEO and Chairman

As CEO and chairman of the board at AbbVie, Richard Gonzalez has overseen a biopharmaceutical company that employs nearly 30,000 people and markets medicines in more than 175 countries since 2012.

Before AbbVie’s separation from Abbott, Gonzalez served as executive vice president of Abbott’s pharmaceutical products group, where he led the global pharmaceutical business, including commercial operations, research and development and manufacturing.

For 2018, AbbVie said it would take one single digit price increase and would continue to act responsibly with respect to drug pricing.

At the beginning of the year, AbbVie increased the price of Humira (adalimumab), the blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis/inflammatory disease treatment, by 9.7%.

Wells Fargo analyst David Maris reportedly said that this single price increase could add $1.2 billion to the US healthcare system’s drug costs this year.

"Richard Gonzalez has overseen a biopharmaceutical company that employs nearly 30,000 people."

There’s no immediate biosimilar competition for Humira in the US—in September last year, AbbVie settled its patent dispute over Amgen’s biosimilar for Humira.

Also in January, AbbVie boosted its 2018 earnings forecast to full-year adjusted earnings of $7.33 to $7.43 per share for 2018, up from its prior view of $6.37 to $6.57. Gonzalez attributed the increase to US tax reform, the continued growth of Humira, and other new products such as Mavyret (glecaprevir/pibrentasvir) for hepatitis C.

Gonzalez’s total compensation in 2017 was $22.6 million, an increase from $21.0 million the year before, according to a company filing.