Cephalon
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| Cephalon, Inc. | |
|---|---|
| Type | Public (NASDAQ: CEPH) |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Headquarters | Frazer, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Key people | Frank Baldino, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive |
| Industry | Biotechnology |
| Products | http://www.cephalon.com/products/default.aspx |
| Employees | 3,000 |
| Website | http://www.cephalon.com |
Cephalon, Inc. (NASDAQ: CEPH) is a U.S. biopharmaceutical company co-founded in 1987 by Dr. Frank Baldino, Jr., a pharmacologist and former scientist with the DuPont Company, who continues to serve as its chairman and chief executive officer. The company's name relates to the Greek root word "cephalic" meaning "related to the head or brain," and it was established primarily to pursue treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
Cephalon is a component of the S&P MidCap 400 stock index, and was first included in the Fortune 1000 list of U.S. companies based upon annual revenues for 2006.
The company's early research efforts were focused on the development of IGF-1, an insulin-like growth factor, under a collaboration with Chiron Corporation to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, but the product has never been approved. More recently, the company has developed and commercialized products for the treatment of sleep disorders, pain, addiction and cancer. In addition to conducting research on kinase inhibitors and other small molecules, it has licensed compounds and acquired both products and other companies, including CIMA Labs, Anesta, and Laboratoire Lafon. Its leading product is Provigil[citation needed] for the treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness associated with narcolepsy, sleep apnea and shift work sleep disorder. In 2003, the company sued several major generic drug companies, including Teva and Mylan, for infringement of a patent related to the particle size of the active drug substance, after these firms sought FDA approval to market generic formulation of modafinil. Cephalon later successfully negotiated with these firms to settle the patent infringement litigation, while entering into a series of business deals covering licensing, supply and product development. The Federal Trade Commission has long regarded this area as one that raises important policy concerns in that such settlements may harm consumer interests, and it challenged these deals as anti-competitive early in 2008. The company insists that they complied with the antitrust laws, and Wall Street analysts and other observers have praised the effort to protect the franchise product. The company also markets Actiq and Fentora for cancer pain, Gabitril for seizures, Trisenox for a rare form of leukemia, and Vivitrol for the treatment of alcohol addiction. In 2005, Cephalon bought Europe-based pharmaceutical company Zeneus. This added to its European presence and gave it further products for its portfolio, including Abelcet, Targretin for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma and Myocet for metastatic breast cancer.
Cephalon's US oncology product line was expanded early in 2008 when the FDA approved Treanda, which is approved for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Armodafinil (brand name: Nuvigil), the R-isomer of their existing product Modafinil (Provigil), also was recently approved by the FDA. However, it has not yet been offered to the commercial market.
The company has its corporate headquarters west of Philadelphia in Frazer, Pennsylvania and its research operations in nearby West Chester, as well as manufacturing and other operations in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota and Salt Lake City, Utah; its European operations are based near Paris, France. Sales revenues exceeded one billion dollars in 2005, ranking Cephalon among the ten leading biopharmaceutical companies in the world. In 2006, industry publication MedAd News named the company one of the ten most respected biotechnology firms in the world.
Key executives, other than Baldino, include J. Kevin Buchi, Dr. Peter Grebow, Dr. Lesley Russell, Robert P. Roche and Dr. Jeffry Vaught. Members of the board include venture capitalist William Egan, former COR Therapeutics CEO Vaughan Kailian, health-care economist Dr. Gail Wilensky, former Harvard physician and Glaxo USA head Dr. Charles Sanders and former Ambassador Kevin Moley.
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