MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, April 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Valeant
Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (NYSE:
VRX) (TSX: VRX) today filed a revised preliminary consent
solicitation statement in which it named Mr. Abe M. Friedman to its
slate of proposed directors in connection with its previously
announced solicitation of written consents from the stockholders of
Cephalon, Inc. (NASDAQ: CEPH). Mr. Friedman will join the
seven-member slate of proposed directors previously announced by
Valeant, which comprises Santo J. Costa, Richard H. Koppes,
Lawrence N. Kugelman, Anders Lonner, John H. McArthur, Thomas G.
Plaskett and Blair H. Sheppard.
Mr. Friedman has immense corporate governance expertise and
experience in issues affecting public companies and their
shareholders and has spent much of his career as a dedicated
shareholder rights advocate. Mr. Friedman was until March
2011 a Managing Director and the Global Head of the Corporate
Governance & Responsible Investment functions at BlackRock,
Inc. He earlier served as a Managing Director and the Global
Head of Corporate Governance at Barclays Global Investors (“BGI”)
and prior to that as the Director of Corporate Governance and Proxy
Voting for the Americas at BGI, which merged with BlackRock in
2009. Prior to his time at BGI, Mr. Friedman was chief policy
officer and general counsel of Glass, Lewis & Co., LLC, a
corporate governance and proxy research firm. He joined Glass
Lewis upon its founding and developed and led Glass Lewis’ proxy
research business.
“We are very pleased to add a highly respected expert in
corporate governance matters to the proposed slate of directors,”
stated J. Michael Pearson, chairman and chief executive officer of
Valeant. “We continue to believe that Cephalon stockholders have
the right to determine the merits of Valeant’s offer and Cephalon’s
poison pill denie
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