President, Reckitt & Colman Pharmaceuticals
Charles O´Keeffe currently serves as president and CEO of Reckett Benckiser Pharmaceuticals Inc. He did his undergraduate work in pharmacy and chemistry at the Medical College of Virginia School of Pharmacy and Temple University and earned his MBA at Loyola. He developed the first child-resistant, abuse-resistant vehicle for dispensing methadone as president of Drug Abuse Rehabilitation Services. He served as president of Washington Reference Laboratories, which was the largest clinical toxicology laboratory in the nation, providing urine toxicology services to the Department of Defense during the Vietnam War. He has served in the White House under three presidents; as Advisor, Special Assistant for International Health, and as Deputy Director of the Office of Drug Abuse Policy, he was responsible for encouraging the U.S. Senate to ratify the Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Mr. O´Keeffe has served on U.S. delegations to the World Health Assembly and the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. He has served as expert advisor to the WHO, UNFDAC, UNSDRI, and other UN agencies. Mr. O´Keeffe was instrumental in assisting the Congress to reach consensus on the Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000.