Author: Paul A. Bleicher

Paul Bleicher, MD, PhD, is the Chief Executive Officer of Optum Labs, an open, collaborative health care innovation center established by Mayo Clinic and Optum to attract research partnerships between various stakeholder groups in healthcare and accelerate the “speed of innovation” in the pursuit of improved patient health. Previously he was Chief Medical Officer for Humedica, a next-generation clinical informatics company that provides novel business intelligence solutions to the health care and life science industry. At Humedica, he had responsibility for medical informatics, data analytics and consulting, and product development. Prior to joining the founding team of Humedica, he was the founder and chairman of Phase Forward, where he grew the organization over an 11-year period from concept to a publicly traded company that is a leading provider of integrated clinical trial data management software and safety solutions for the biopharmaceutical industry. He was the original CEO of Phase Forward (acquired by Oracle in 2010), and throughout his tenure there focused on corporate strategy. Until his departure in October 2008, he served continuously as chairman. Before Phase Forward, Dr. Bleicher served as vice president of Clinical Affairs at Alpha-Beta Technology, and director, Early Phase Services at PAREXEL International. Dr. Bleicher received his MD and PhD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, specializing in cellular immunology, and his BS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He trained in internal medicine at the Beth Israel Hospital, and dermatology at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, did a post-doctoral fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in molecular biology, and began his career as a physician/investigator and assistant professor at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.