Women earn 79 cents for every dollar a man makes — except in the biotech market.
Male and female biotech CEOs had identical median base pay for 2016, according to Thelander Consulting's 2016 Private Company Compensation Report.
The report, which compiled data from 978 private companies, studied CEO salaries for four different sectors: biotech, clean tech, medical devices and other tech. Overall, researchers discovered an average CEO pay gap of $25,000.
Medical device CEOs showed the largest difference in pay, with males earning an average of $34,500 more than their female counterparts.
"It is almost impossible to be a biotech CEO unless you have advanced education. In biotech, [men and women] have the same training, the same exposure…so they start to get to a same level of skill. Education is the great equalizer," said Jody Thelander, president and CEO of Mill Valley, Calif.-based Thelander Consulting, in a Fortune report.
However, data shows that female CEOs in the biotech industry actually achieved higher levels of education. According to Thelander Consulting, 88.8 percent of female CEOs in the biotech industry have a master's degree or higher, compared to 84.7 percent of male CEOs, while 51 percent of female biotech CEOs hold a PhD or higher, compared to 36 percent of their male counterparts.
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