John Easton

ohn holds a BSc and a Ph.D. in physiology, both from the University of London. After a postdoctorate position at the London Hospital Medical School, John joined the CNS team at May & Baker (then a division of Rhone Poulenc) in 1985. In 1988 he co-founded a startup CRO (Campbell Charles Associates), moving on in 1992 to be Clinical Research Director at Bios and then again in 1996 to join IBAH (later Omnicare Clinical Research, now Theorem) where he held a number of positions, including Vice President of International Business Development and Regional General Manager for Northern Europe.

John joined PAREXEL in 2001 to head a customer business unit and moved to HQ in Boston early in 2002 to run the global sales organization for the Clinical Research Services division. He joined AstraZeneca in 2004 to head Global Clinical Outsourcing and then joined the newly formed Business Development team at AstraZeneca in January 2007. He has held a number of roles as the Business Development team has evolved and is currently the Head of Business Operations for BD, a role which encompasses most of the back-office functions for BD in addition to leading the due diligence team. John is also responsible for coordinating divestment activity at AstraZeneca and is one of the divestment transaction leads, most recently completing the divestment of US rights for Entocort to Perrigo and ex-US rights to Tillotts Pharma.