Lilly's chief executive takes home about $114 million as obesity drugs lift the stock

Eli Lilly disclosed in a March 2025 proxy statement that CEO David Ricks's compensation for 2024 reached $114 million, driven largely by stock awards tied to the company's surging obesity and diabetes drug sales ^[1]. A separate accounting in the same filing put his total pay at $29.2 million, a figure based on the grant-date value of his compensation package rather than realized gains ^[2]. The gap between the two numbers reflects different ways of counting stock-based pay: one values shares at the price on the day they were granted, the other reflects what they were worth once vested or exercised, according to the reporting ^[1][2].

By the grant-date measure, Ricks's $29.2 million package was 10% higher than his $26.6 million in 2023 ^[2]. Since he became CEO in 2017, his annual compensation has nearly doubled from $15.8 million ^[2]. Over that same period, Lilly's market value grew from about $80 billion to roughly $781 billion, nearly twice the size of Johnson & Johnson, the industry's next-largest company at $401 billion ^[2].

The company's 2024 results help explain the pay increase. Lilly's revenue grew 32% to $45 billion, and earnings per share rose 106% to $12.99 ^[2]. Mounjaro and Zepbound, Lilly's tirzepatide products for diabetes and obesity, combined for $16.4 billion in sales for the year ^[2]. The company also pointed to growth in other drugs, including breast cancer treatment Verzenio at $5.3 billion and heart failure drug Jardiance at $3.3 billion, along with new approvals for Ebglyss and Kisunla and an expanded Zepbound label for sleep apnea ^[2]. Ricks's package included a $5.7 million bonus, $19.7 million in equity awards, $1.7 million in salary, and a $1.7 million increase in pension value ^[2].

The proxy statement also disclosed about $186,000 in reimbursed expenses for Ricks and two other Lilly executives to attend a company "global executive leadership meeting" held in Paris alongside the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games ^[1]. Other Lilly executives also saw large paychecks: chief scientific officer Dan Skovronsky made $12.6 million, including a $3.2 million bonus, and general counsel Anat Hakim collected $7.5 million, including a $2.3 million bonus ^[2]. Compared with peer drugmakers, Ricks's pay outpaced AstraZeneca's Pascal Soriot, who made the equivalent of about $18.5 million, and Novartis's Vas Narasimhan, who made about $15.7 million ^[2].

Why it matters for patients

These disclosures don't change what anyone pays for Mounjaro, Zepbound, or any other GLP-1 drug at the pharmacy counter. But they show where a large share of the money generated by soaring demand for these medications is flowing. Lilly's stock price gains, fueled in part by obesity and diabetes drug sales, translate directly into executive pay through stock awards, and the size of that pay has grown alongside the company's revenue and market value ^[1][2]. For patients weighing the cost of these drugs against insurance coverage or out-of-pocket prices, the disclosures offer a window into how profitable the obesity drug market has become for the company producing two of its leading products, even as many patients continue to face high list prices and coverage gaps that are not addressed in these filings.

What happens next

The sources reviewed here cover only Lilly's 2024 compensation, disclosed in the March 2025 proxy statement ^[1][2]. Details of any 2025 executive pay package, including how it may compare with 2024 figures, are not included in these sources and are not yet known.