Owen Garrick, MD, MBA
Owen Garrick, MD, MBA, is president and chief operating officer of Bridge Clinical Research. At Bridge Clinical, Dr. Garrick has overall responsibility for the Clinical Trials, Health Services Research, and Healthcare Communications business units. Bridge Clinical is a global private equity-backed contract research and health communications firm focused on drug development, scientific advancement, and patient engagement. It is active in multiple therapeutic areas including anti-infectives, autoimmune, cardiovascular disease, endocrinology, and oncology. Since 2009, therapies that it has helped develop have generated more than $6 billion in revenues. In addition to profit and loss responsibility for the business units, Dr. Garrick has oversight of all financial, administrative, and legal aspects of the company, and serves on the Board of Directors as corporate secretary. He has led Bridge Clinical's expansion into multiple therapeutic areas, launched the public relations arm, and represents Bridge Clinical at the US Food and Drug Administration. Previous to assuming this position in 2009, Dr. Garrick was chief financial officer for its predecessor company.
Prior to joining Bridge Clinical, Dr. Garrick was director of strategy and business development at McKesson Corporation which delivers pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and health care information technologies. Some of his key accomplishments included the $450M acquisition of D&K Healthcare which involved due diligence, negotiations, and FTC clearances. He also led the launch of McKesson's Generic Drugs Telesales Business Unit, the development and launch of McKesson's Drug Adherence Business, and the expansion of the pharmaceutical packaging business.
Before joining McKesson, Dr. Garrick was global head of M&A negotiations at Novartis Pharmaceuticals. In this position he oversaw small and medium sized company acquisitions, equity/license right deals, mature product divestments, and venture investments in biotechnology companies. While at Novartis, he pioneered the contingent payment deal structure with the $465 million acquisition of Idenix Pharmaceuticals which launched Novartis' Anti-Infectives business unit. This structure has become an industry standard tool in life sciences deals.
Dr. Garrick's experience also includes positions at Goldman Sachs as an investment advisor working with private healthcare companies as they sought to grow, raise capital, and perform initial public offerings, and Merck & Company, where he authored the first commercial analysis of Human Papillomma Virus vaccine (Gardasil) which has had peak sales of $1.6 billion.
Dr. Garrick earned his MD from Yale School of Medicine and his MBA from Wharton School of Business. He holds an AB in Psychology from Princeton University and continues to be an active alumnus currently serving on the Executive Committee of the Alumni Council, which represents the 80,000 member alumni body. Dr. Garrick also serves on the boards of the $6BN Bay Area Division of Sutter Health, Quorum Review IRB where he chairs the Compensation Committee, and the New York Blood Center where he serves on the M&A Committee. He is also vice chair of the Board of Regents of Samuel Merritt University. Previously, he served on the board of the American Medical Association Foundation where he was Board president and Context Matters Inc., a venture backed health economics company where he was co-founder. These entities have shown double digit annual growth during his involvement. He was confirmed as a member of the Department of Health and Human Services Advisory Council on Human Research Protections in 2012. He has co-authored industry advisory documents around biospecimen data security and patient engagement in research. Dr. Garrick resides in Oakland, California with his wife and their three sons. He joined the PRIM&R Board in 2017 and is a member of the Finance Committee, the Audit Sub-committee, and the Diversity Advisory Group.