Richard Merkin - Medical Visionary Award

RICHARD MERKIN, M.D. is a role model of excellence as a healthcare leader. Since 1980 he has served as the Chief Executive Officer and founder of the Heritage Group, named one of the world's "10 Most Innovative Companies" in healthcare. Under his stewardship, the Heritage Group has become the largest, physician-owned and operated integrated delivery system in the United States with over 50 related healthcare companies.

In response to our nation's health-care crises, Dr. Merkin created the $3 million Heritage Health Prize for predictive modeling to save more than $30 billion in avoidable hospitalizations. He also is deeply committed to the neurosciences and he established the Richard Merkin Foundation for Stem Cell Research at the Broad Institute at Harvard and MIT; the Richard Merkin Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute; the Richard Merkin Foundation for Neural Regeneration at UCLA; and he serves on the Board of Directors at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.