Top leaders at 13 drug companies including Pfizer and Moderna sold 8.5 million shares valued at about $496 million last year as COVID-19 vaccine advancements increased stock values, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Executives at Moderna, which made one of the two vaccines approved for use in the U.S., sold $321 million of their stock in more than 700 transactions. At Merck, executives sold $58 million of their shares and at Novarax they sold $40 million of their shares.
For comparison, executives at the same 13 companies sold 4.7 million shares worth $132 million in 2019, according to Kaleidoscope, a research consulting firm.
Experts in corporate compensation say these sales are permitted as long as they adhere to insider trader rules and represent a shift to combine company stock with executive compensation to tie pay and performance, reports WSJ.