Richard Merkin, has been the CEO and founder of the Heritage Group since 1979. 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. The Heritage Group encompasses numerous patent, venture capital, private equity, and insurance companies.

Dr. Merkin serves on the California Institute of Technology Board of Trustees and the Keck School of Medicine of USC Board of Overseers. He is the co-founder of Fastercures. He has established the Merkin Institute for Transformative Technologies in Healthcare at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as well as the Richard Merkin Foundation for Stem Cell Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Richard Merkin Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute, the Merkin Peripheral Neuropathy and Nerve Regeneration Center at Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Richard Merkin Foundation for Neural Regeneration at UCLA, and both the Richard N. Merkin Institute for Translational Research and the Heritage Research Institute for the Advancement of Medicine and Science at Caltech. He is on the board of the California Nano Systems Institute and serves on many other boards that focus on science, healthcare and finance.

Inspired by the XPRIZE Foundation, Dr. Merkin launched the Heritage Health Prize, a $3 million global incentivized competition seeking to achieve a fundamental breakthrough in our ability to predict future hospitalization.