Compensation Philosophy
Our compensation philosophy supports and rewards the characteristics and behaviors we believe will make
us successful:
Pay for Performance
. We incorporate a number of features into our compensation structure to mitigate the
risk that our compensation policies and practices could encourage unnecessary or imprudent business risk taking.
We use a combination of compensation vehicles that provide a balanced mix of fixed and variable cash
incentives, and long-term stock incentives. Our PerformanceMBOs are not guaranteed (i.e. are 100% at risk) and
include a multiplier, or performance factor, based on Isis’ and the employee’s performance. Therefore, if
either
Isis or the employee does not performwell, the PerformanceMBO can be, and has been, zero.
CEOPay Ratio.
An executive officer’s salary plus bonus represents the officer’s total cash compensation.
Our philosophy has been to have the CEO’s total cash compensation be between 20-30 times the lowest levels of
compensation received by an employee. Dr. Crooke’s total cash compensation, over the last three years, was on
average 24.3 times that of the average cash compensation for our lowest level employees and 1.92 times greater
than the average of our other executive officers. We cover the specific elements of our compensation structure in
more detail below.
Business Objectives
As noted above, our vision is clear and is designed to promote long-term creation of value through
innovation, and bring benefit to generations of patients with many diseases. Our vision is to:
•
create and constantly advance a new, more efficient drug discovery platform, antisense technology;
•
create a unique business model and culture committed to creating long-term value through innovation;
•
broaden, deepen and advance our pipeline of antisense drugs;
•
demand more of every employee - more commitment, more knowledge, more intensity, more
innovation, more productivity;
•
aggressively manage average and below average performance so that every employee produces more;
and
•
demand great performance and pay for that performance.
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