Company: HROW
Filing Date: 2025-04-25
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001641172-25-006102
Chunk: 39

Company: HARROW, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-04-25
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 39
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 external compensation consultant, Mercer, Inc. (“Mercer”). The mandate of the consultant was to assist the Compensation Committee in its review of executive and director compensation practices, including the competitiveness of pay levels, executive compensation design (including equity grants of subsidiaries), benchmarking with the Company’s peers in the industry and other technical considerations including tax- and accounting-related matters. The Compensation Committee regularly evaluates Mercer’s performance, considers alternative compensation consultants and has the final authority to engage and terminate Mercer’s services. The decision to engage Mercer was made solely by the Compensation Committee. The Compensation Committee, after a review of the factors set forth in Section 10C-1 of the Exchange Act and Nasdaq requirements, has determined that the work performed by Mercer did not present any conflicts of interest.

The Compensation Committee intends to continue to engage with Mercer in order to assist the Compensation Committee in its ongoing review of executive and director compensation practices, including a regular review and update of the Company’s peer companies. In 2025, the Compensation Committee engaged Mercer to assist in the update of the list of peer companies and perform a review of executive and director compensation practices.

Competitive Market Benchmarking

The Compensation Committee draws on a number of resources to assist in the evaluation of the various components of the Company’s executive compensation program including, but not limited to, industry data compiled by Mercer in its Global Life Sciences Survey, which represents a nationally-based assessment of executive compensation widely used within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry sectors. While we do not establish compensation levels based solely on benchmarking, pay practices at other companies within such sectors are an important factor that the Compensation Committee considers in assessing the reasonableness of compensation and ensuring that our compensation practices are competitive in the marketplace. The Compensation Committee adopted a group of peer companies in 2023, and the Compensation Committee may revise the group of peer companies to take into account changes in market capitalization and similarities to the Company along the dimensions of competition for talent, phase of development or stage of commercialization, current and potential market capitalization, and number of employees in the future. More specifically, when establishing the 2023 peer group, the Compensation Committee and Mercer focused on biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, targeting commercial companies, when possible, with employee headcounts over 100 employees. Mercer and the Compensation Committee also gave consideration to market value, research and development expense, location, stage of development and ophthalmic focus. The list of peer companies identified in 2023 by the Compensation Committee was comprised of the following companies:

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