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| Gilead CEO John Martin |
Gilead CEO John Martin's 4.2 million shares--and 6.4 million vested options--have made him a billionaire, according to Bloomberg. Martin's tenure has seen the company build blockbuster revenue from its HIV franchise while creating a new standard of care in the hepatitis C arena. At the time Gilead ($GILD) bought out Pharmasset and the hep C drug that would go on to approval as Sovaldi, Martin got some flak for paying a whopping $11 billion for the biotech. Today, though, he's laughing all the way to the bank. He's already cashed in more than a half-billion dollars' worth of stock, which has quadrupled in value in a little more than two years. Gilead and Martin have also been criticized for charging $84,000 for a course of Sovaldi, but the company generally shrugs off its critics. Story