Healthcare MR Firm Adds New Leaders

California-based healthcare information provider and researcher SK&A is celebrating its 25th anniversary with the appointment of David Escalante as its new President-COO and Manus Gallagher as VP Sales.

With a 14-year background in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors, Escalante joins from a VP role at marketRX, which provides consultancy to pharma, biotech and medical devices companies. Prior to this he was VP Product Management at pharma services firm Dendrite International. In both roles he developed multi-year growth strategies for new and existing products in global markets. Escalante is a graduate of Rutgers University, with a BA in Computer Science and History.

Stuart Krasney, SK&A's Chairman and CEO said the firm is fortunate to have attracted someone with Escalante's experience, saying: 'Dave has worked with nearly all the top-50 pharmaceutical companies, US and international. He has an intimate understanding of the business, technology, processes and data required for healthcare companies to market successfully.'

In his new role reporting to Escalante, Gallagher will be managing the sales team and building customer relationships. He has 12 years' sales and marketing experience in the pharmaceutical industry, having previously held senior sales and management positions with Dendrite, SAI, royalBlue Technologies and StayInFront. Gallagher is a graduate of Millersville University, with a BS in Business Administration.

Escalante said he is delighted that Gallagher has taken on the new role and added: 'Over the past five years alone, Manus was directly responsible for selling and leading a team to deliver $72 million in new business, while building exceptional relationships with customers.'

Launched in 1982, SK&A researches, formats and maintains contact and profiling information for more than 2 million healthcare providers, and also conducts physician practice qual and quant primary research. As well as its Irvine, CA headquarters, the company has a network of nationwide sales offices and is on the web at: www.skainfo.com.