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 Board of the California Institute of Technology and the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. He is the Co-founder of Fastercures. He has established the Richard Merkin Foundation for Stem Cell Research at the Broad Institute at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Richard Merkin Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute, and the Richard Merkin Foundation for Neural Regeneration at UCLA. 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.