G&W Laboratories has announced the appointment of Jay Galeotato the position of President and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Galeota joins G&W following a 28-year career at Merck, where he was most recently Chief Strategy & Business Development Officer and President, Emerging Businesses. As President and Chief Operating Officer he will oversee all company business operations and will shape the company's long-term growth strategy. G&W's current President, Kurt Orlofski, will assume the newly-created role of President of Generics, where he will lead sales, marketing and commercialization of current and near-term generic products, a foundation for the company's long-term growth.
"Our past performance and vision for the future, coupled with our values-based approach to life and business, have helped us build a high-caliber senior team at G&W with the knowledge, experience and commitment to achieve our ambitious growth goals," said Dr. Aaron Greenblatt, CEO of G&W Laboratories. "Jay Galeota is an experienced global business leader with a track record of industry innovation and commercial success, who brings the expertise needed to build and scale our company for ever-increasing levels of growth, and most importantly he embodies values that are perfectly aligned with those of G&W. I want to sincerely thank Kurt Orlofski for his many significant contributions to G&W and his unwavering commitment to building the strong platform from which the company operates today. His in-depth industry knowledge and commercial skills have been and will continue to be of great value to us in his new role."
Since Carl Greenblatt founded G&W Laboratories in 1919, the company's focus has been on helping people realize their potential through development of reliable and effective medicines, caring for employees and the community, and generating value for the company's strategic partners.
"I am thrilled to join G&W, a leader in delivering high quality, hard-to-source generic pharmaceutical products to patients globally and look forward to expanding the portfolio into novel research-based medicines," said Mr. Galeota. "I have been impressed by G&W's high-performance culture and talented team, which drive the exceptional innovation they bring to the industry and uniquely position the company for success."
Prior to joining G&W Laboratories Mr. Galeota spent 28 years at Merck, where he served in many diverse positions across commercial operations, business development, strategy, and innovation, both globally and in the U.S. Most recently, he was Chief Strategy & Business Development Officer and President, Emerging Businesses at Merck. Prior to that he was President of Hospital & Specialty Care, which represented more than $10 billion in worldwide revenues for the company. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President of Global Human Health Strategy and Business Development, where he helped establish Merck's Global Health Innovation Fund and the Innovative Venture Group to incubate businesses that broadened the company's portfolio and established leadership in key therapeutic areas and markets. Mr. Galeota was instrumental in bringing Merck into diabetes and led the team that developed and launched Merck's top grossing products, Januvia and Janumet. After the merger of Merck and Schering-Plough in 2009, he led the integration of the global pharmaceutical and vaccine businesses. Mr. Galeota started his career in Merck's commercial organization, where he held various U.S. and global leadership positions and led numerous brands and key product launches across a variety of therapeutic areas.