2013's biggest job-cutters in medical devices and diagnostics (so far)

While many of the big-time medical device companies are forecasting sunny earnings for 2013, that hasn't slowed down the march to trim payroll, as companies from Accuray ($ARAY) to Zimmer ($ZMH) have announced thousands of layoffs since Jan. 1.

For some, like Abbott Laboratories ($ABT) and Medtronic ($MDT), the job cuts are designed to pare down sluggish units and reinvest in more successful segments. Abbott announced hundreds of layoffs in its medical device business, cutting some losses amid slipping demand for old-generation stents, but the company is still profiting off its growing diagnostics arm, and CEO Miles White said he expects the CE marked Absorb to become a "workhorse" for the company once it wins FDA approval.

It's a similar story for Medtronic, as the world's largest devicemaker disclosed this week that it's cutting thousands of jobs around the world to save $225 million per year. The cuts are centered on Medtronic's struggling spinal and cardiac rhythm management businesses, and cutting manufacturing jobs will allow the company to invest in fast-growing spaces like atrial fibrillation and neuromodulation.

For the likes of Boston Scientific ($BSX) and Quest Diagnostics ($DGX), however, the payroll slashing has a bit more immediacy. Boston Scientific is deep into CEO Mike Mahoney's plan to return the company to growth, and, in the short term, that means rolling out new devices and trimming costs. The Massachusetts device giant is mounting a sizable job-cutting initiative in 2013, looking to save between $100 million and $115 million.

Quest is in a similar position. As demand for diagnostic tests dries up and Medicare reimbursement woes put the future in jeopardy, the company is looking to lop off hundreds of jobs by year's end, part of a wide-ranging restructuring effort designed to cut spending by $500 million. Along the way, Quest has shipped off many of its diagnostic products units and is investing in clinical testing and contract research, redefining its business to stave off softening sales in its flagship units.

While the stated reasons always vary, underlying every layoff announcement--even the ones buried in paragraph 27 of otherwise cheery press releases--is an understanding that the business of selling medical devices and diagnostics has changed. Companies are shifting priorities in response to a changing healthcare market, where cost-effectiveness has become just as important as clinical efficacy. Med tech companies are moving away from mainstay products with so-so reputations and doubling down on technologies that can help reduce repeat hospital visits and save money for patients, payers and providers.

That transition is unlikely to be painless, however, and these are hardly the last layoffs we'll see in 2013.

20 Highest-Paid Biopharma CEOs of 2012

Call it a rite of spring. Every year about this time, FiercePharma takes a look at executive compensation in the industry, and we rank the highest-paid CEOs. If you're a regular reader, you'll notice that this year's list is longer than previous editions. And there's a reason for that: curiosity.

As we were beginning to gather numbers from biopharma companies' proxy statements and annual reports, news surfaced that Valeant Pharmaceuticals ($VRX) and Actavis ($ACT) had been in merger talks. The former CEO of Mylan ($MYL), one of Actavis' rivals, regularly appeared on our highest-paid executives list, so we looked up the numbers on Actavis. No dice; CEO Paul Bisaro may have pulled off his biggest merger ever last year, but $8.66 million in compensation still didn't qualify him for our ranking.

Then, we pulled out Valeant's proxy statement. And while CEO Michael Pearson didn't earn enough in 2012 to make the cutoff--his compensation just surpassed $6 million--he should have been at the top of the list last year. Pearson's 2011 pay package broke $36 million. He collected more than $18 million in stock and option awards, plus a special $13.7 million dividend payment, stemming from agreements negotiated years before.

We hate to miss a scoop. Naturally. So, we vowed to avoid making the same mistake this time around. Rather than limit our executive-pay search to the biggest pharma companies and biotechs, plus the usual suspects who often make CEO-pay rankings, we used a bigger net. We collected compensation information from 50 companies, including numbers for CEOs, CFOs, R&D chiefs and other top executives.

Partly because of this search, but mostly because of big bonuses and awards at fast-growing Regeneron ($REGN), we have a brand-new No. 1 on our list. That's Regeneron CEO Leonard Schleifer, whose 2012 compensation totaled $30.047 million. You'll notice some other newbies, such as Leonard Bell from Alexion ($ALXN), whose pay bump put him in 12th place. And then there are familiar faces, such as Pfizer ($PFE) CEO Ian Read; Johnson & Johnson's ($JNJ) former chairman and CEO, William Weldon; and Eli Lilly ($LLY) CEO John Lechleiter, who hung on in 10th place.

Many of the companies we researched pay their top people far less than the $10 million that served as our cutoff figure. Novo Nordisk ($NVO) CEO Lars Sorensen, who has presided over double-digit growth there for several years, collected a package of cash and stock awards worth about $5 million for 2012. GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) CEO Andrew Witty made less than $6 million himself; he took a pay cut for the year because of Glaxo's shortfall on certain performance targets.

And then there are others who would have made the list, had their titles been different. There's Regeneron R&D chief George Yancopoulos, whose extraordinary $81 million in compensation shows how much the company appreciates its newly minted blockbuster, Eylea. There's Mylan Chairman Robert Coury, who used to be a fixture on our list until Heather Bresch took over as CEO; he made more than $28 million last year. Novartis' ($NVS) former chairman Daniel Vasella could have qualified for 12th place with his $13.98 million in compensation.

Vasella, then, gives us a quick segue to the ongoing debate over executive pay. In Switzerland, populist dismay at some high-profile compensation figures led to a public vote earlier this year. Citizens voted in new restrictions on common bonuses, such as golden parachutes, and gave shareholders a binding vote on executive pay. And local analysts figure that late-breaking news of Vasella's behind-the-scenes noncompete agreement--worth some $78 million over 5 years--helped pay activists to get out the vote. (Vasella ended up refusing the deal, by the way.)

In the U.S., where executives are paid more than anywhere else in the world, shareholders at some companies have successfully lobbied for a greater emphasis on performance pay and against extraordinary bonuses, such as change-in-control payments that send top executives on their way with tens of millions after a merger. Other companies have instituted "say-on-pay" advisory votes for shareholders, but those often end up as rubber stamps for the status quo.

1  Leonard 'Len' Schleifer - Regeneron	11  Joe Jimenez - Novartis
2  William Weldon - Johnson & Johnson	12  Leonard Bell - Alexion Pharmaceuticals
3  Ian Read - Pfizer	13  Robert Bradway - Amgen
4  Miles White - Abbott Laboratories	14  George Scangos - Biogen Idec
5  David Pyott - Allergan	15  Severin Schwan - Roche
6  Robert Parkinson - Baxter International	16  Angus Russell - Shire
7  Lamberto Andreotti - Bristol-Myers Squibb	17  Alex Gorsky - Johnson & Johnson
8  Kenneth Frazier - Merck	18  Robert Hugin - Celgene
9  John Martin - Gilead Sciences	19  Heather Bresch - Mylan
10  John Lechleiter - Eli Lilly	20  Christopher Viehbacher - Sanofi