GSK CEO Emma Walmsley's total pay rises 51% to nearly 13 million pounds in 2023

(Reuters) -GSK CEO Emma Walmsley's total remuneration rose 51% to 12.7 million pounds ($16 million) in 2023, thanks to a big jump in performance-related pay, the British drugmaker's annual report showed on Friday.

Walmsley's total pay included 11.1 million pounds in performance bonuses and awards. Her total pay in 2022 was 8.4 million pounds.

GSK beat market estimates in the fourth quarter of 2023 as it completed a first full year since spinning off its consumer health business Haleon.

Walmsley, chief executive since 2017, has been pivotal in sharpening GSK's focus on vaccines and infectious diseases, and shifting its HIV focus to long-acting treatment and prevention therapies, amid a series of upcoming patent expiries, litigations and declining revenue from current bestsellers.

Rival AstraZeneca's top boss Pascal Soriot's 2023 remuneration was higher at 16.9 million pounds. That was a nearly 12% increase over 2022.

Pay for top bosses at UK's biggest firms have been a topic of hot discussion over several years.

In 2022, the average rise in CEO pay was over a hundred times the median worker's pay hike despite soaring inflation and a cost-of-living crisis, according to data from High Pay Centre last year.

Shares in GSK ended flat in 2023 compared with AstraZeneca 6% fall. GSK has risen 14.5% so far this year.

($1 = 0.7914 pounds)

(Reporting by Anchal Rana and Prerna Bedi in Bengaluru; Editing by Shweta Agarwal and Sriraj Kalluvila)