Massachusetts Patron Life Fellow John E. Osborn
February 8, 2008, Fellows in the news
Cephalon General Counsel John E. Osborn to Resign Position
Osborn to Remain as Advisor to Company
Frazer, Pa. – February 8, 2008 – Cephalon, Inc., (Nasdaq: CEPH) today announced that its Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, John E. Osborn, has decided to resign his position with the company, effective March 31. Mr. Osborn has agreed to remain as an advisor to the company on significant legal and policy matters.
“John has been an invaluable member of our senior executive team and is an exceptionally talented lawyer. On behalf of the board of directors and executive team, I want to express my appreciation for his more than 10 years of outstanding contributions and assistance in building Cephalon into one of the leading biopharmaceutical companies in the world,” said Frank Baldino, Jr., Ph.D., Chairman and CEO. “I also am pleased that John has agreed to continue to advise the company and to assist in ensuring an effective transition,” Dr. Baldino added.
Mr. Osborn has accepted an appointment as a visiting fellow with the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford for the spring 2008 term, and will be associated with Wadham College Oxford. He also will serve as an advisor on life sciences regulatory and compliance matters to the international consulting firm McKinsey & Company, Inc. In 2007, Mr. Osborn was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, which is pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate. He has also served as a member of the Board of Governors of the East-West Center in Honolulu, a research and education organization focused on the Asia Pacific region, and was an Eisenhower Fellow to Northern Ireland in 1998.
Mr. Osborn joined Cephalon in March 1997 and was promoted to General Counsel in 1998. During his tenure, he has managed the legal, government, corporate and public affairs functions, in addition to quality assurance and compliance. Among his many accomplishments with the company, Mr. Osborn led the initiative in late 2005 and early 2006 to structure and negotiate the settlement of the company’s patent litigation related to PROVIGIL® (modafinil) Tablets [C-IV], resolved an investigation of the company’s sales and marketing practices by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia, and coordinated the legislative effort that led to the enactment of the Controlled Substances Export Control Reform Act of 2005.
Mr. Osborn is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute, and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He was named to the Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America in 2007.
The Company will immediately begin a search for Mr. Osborn’s successor.
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