Johnson & Johnson’s outgoing Chief Executive Officer William Weldon will receive a pension of $143.5 million when he stands down next month.

Mr Weldon is set to retire after more than forty years with J&J and has amassed a pension of $48.4m, plus a further $95.1m in deferred and long-term compensation.

The company’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said Mr Weldon will receive his pension in monthly payments.

The 63-year-old, who began as a sales representative in 1971, will be replaced by Alex Gorskey but remain as company chair.

Mr Gorskey, who currently leads J&J’s devices and supply-chain units, was paid $6.8m last year, records showed.

He will begin his new position on April 26^th 2012 becoming only the ninth leader in J&J’s 126-year history.

The FDA has approved Johnson & Johnson’s ‘blockbuster’ drug Zytiga for advanced prostate cancer.

Zytiga was given the thumbs up by the US health regulator nearly two months earlier than expected with analysts now predicting annual sales exceeding $1 billion.

William Weldon, CEO, J&J, recently cited the cancer drug as one of the important medicines he expects to help to fortify the New Jersey-based company’s prescription drugs business.

The first once-daily oral pill, which decreases production of testosterone that stimulates cancer cells to continue growing, was approved in combination with the steroid prednisone in patients with late-stage castration-resistant prostate cancer who have received prior chemotherapy treatment.

Known chemically as abiraterone, it was shown to extend the lives of patients with advanced prostate cancer by an average of four months in a clinical trial. The study of nearly 2,000 patients was halted so that participants could instead by be given abiraterone after an independent safety monitoring committee determined a clear survival benefit.

As a result, Zytiga received priority review status from the FDA – which reduces the approval decision time from the standard 10 to 12 month review period to six months.

Dr Richard Pazdur, Director of the FDA’s Office of Oncology, said in a statement that “Zytiga prolonged the lives of men with late-stage prostate cancer who had received prior treatments and had few available therapeutic options”.

J&J acquired abiraterone after its 2009 purchase of Cougar Biotechnology.

Shareholders should protest against the pay of big pharma CEOs, says the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

AFSCME is recommending that shareholders of both Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vote against the executive compensation proposals at the annual meetings of both companies, which take place on April 28, 2011.

The Federation campaigned for the Wall Street Reform Act, which means that shareholders now have the right to vote on executive pay.

“Now shareowners can use Say on Pay at all companies to register their disapproval of CEO pay,” said President Gerald W. McEntee.

“It's up to investors to use this tool judiciously and send a clear message to boards of directors:  pay needs to be tied to performance.”

Johnson & Johnson recently paid Chairman and CEO William Weldon nearly $29 million, despite eleven recalls of JNJ drugs at a cost of $900 million.

Pfizer's retired CEO Jeffrey Kindler (pictured) received nearly $25 million, a 60% increase over his 2009 compensation. In total, he received over $72 million in compensation, at a time when the company’s stock price dropped by more than a third and lost approximately $68 billion in market value.

“Pfizer's CEO pay is indefensible,” added McEntee. “CEOs should not get massive rewards after shareholder value is destroyed on their watch. This lavish reward for failure is simply madness.”

A recent Pf Survey showed that 60% of website visitors feel big pharma CEOs are paid more than they deserve. Read more about the poll.