Brad Perkins, M.D.

Brad Perkins, M.D. HLI Chief Medical Officer with genetics pioneer, Dr. Craig Venter; Former Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, U.S. Centers for Disease Control; Former EVP, Vanguard Health; Venly Mentor

Throughout Dr. Perkins’ 25 year career he has been a visionary reformer bringing about positive change through his creative, strategic and bold leadership. As Chief Medical Officer at Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI), Dr. Perkins is responsible for leading all clinical and therapeutic operations at the company, which includes collecting and utilizing phenotypic data, development of the consumer clinics business, and stem cell therapeutics.

Prior to joining HLI, Dr. Perkins was Executive Vice President for Strategy and Innovation, and Chief Transformation Officer at Vanguard Health Systems, a large multi-state, for-profit, integrated health services provider with nearly 46,000 employees. He helped transform Vanguard from a traditional fee for service healthcare model, to a fee for value, “population health” model. Some of his innovative solutions there included: establishing Accountable Care Organizations to improve primary care, implementing an award winning tele-radiology program, and starting a $167 million venture capital fund to support Vanguard’s transformation programs. During his tenure, Vanguard’s revenues grew from approximately $2.6 billion to nearly $6.5 billion and the company had an initial public offering. Vanguard was sold to another publicly traded health care company in 2013.

Dr. Perkins began his career at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1989 after completing his residency training and chief residency in internal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. At the CDC he led some of the most important and high profile programs and published more than 120 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.

He first joined and then led the Meningitis and Special Pathogens Branch where he investigated global bacterial disease epidemics. He co-discovered the bacteria which causes Cat Scratch Diseases and conducted translational research leading to development of several new bacterial meningitis and pneumonia vaccines, now the standard of vaccine therapy globally. In 2001 Dr. Perkins led the field and laboratory investigations into the anthrax attacks in the United States. This was the largest and highest profile investigation ever conducted by CDC. In 2005 he was appointed CDC’s Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, a position in which he managed a $11.2 billion budget, and 15,000 employees with offices in more than 50 countries. Working closely with the CDC Director, he built a $2 billion state-of-the-art emergency response capability and positioned the improvement of population health as a focus of the healthcare reform movement within the White House administration at that time.

Dr. Perkins received his BA in Microbiology and his MD from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and an MBA from Emory University. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine.