News

Posted On: 04/05/2007

Akorn Appoints Silvestri as VP of New Product Development

PharmaManufacturing.com

Akorn, Inc. recently announced the appointment of Shawn L. Silvestri, Ph.D. as vice president, New Product Development. Dr. Silvestri brings fifteen years experience in pharmaceutical research and development with Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, IL to his new role at Akorn.

Before joining Akorn, Dr. Silvestri served as director, Abbott Diagnostics Division (ADD) Focused Factory and Technical Services from 2005 to 2007. There he led an organization of five hundred fifty scientists and manufacturing personnel at three sites performing product and process development, technical transfer, analytical methods development, validation and product life cycle management. Prior to 2005, Dr. Silvestri held diversified and progressively responsible roles in pharmaceutical product and process development with Global Pharmaceutical Operations (GPO), Pharmaceutical Product Division (PPD) and Abbott International (AI). Dr. Silvestri joined Abbott as group leader, Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery in 1992. Dr. Silvestri received a B.S. Pharmacy in 1985 from Duquesne University and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences-Pharmaceutics from the University of Connecticut, Storrs in 1989.

Arthur S. Przybyl, president and chief executive officer, stated, "We are excited to have Shawn join our senior management team. He brings substantial new product and process development experience in specialty pharmaceuticals to Akorn and we are confident that his technical expertise and leaderships skills will be a great asset. Shawn will be responsible for transitioning our product development efforts from our manufacturing site locations to a centralized location near our corporate headquarters."