James Heywood | Markle
James Heywood | Markle

James Heywood

Co-founder and Chairman, PatientsLikeMe
Member, Markle Connecting for Health Work Group on Consumer Engagement

Jamie Heywood, an MIT engineer, entered translational research when his brother Stephen was diagnosed with ALS. He is the chairman and co-founder of PatientsLikeMe, where patients share in-depth information on treatments, symptoms, and managing disease. PatientsLikeMe is working to improve medical care and align and illuminate value. In 1999, he founded ALS-TDI, the first non-profit biotechnology company, and now the leading ALS drug discovery center. Heywood pioneered an open research model and an industrialized therapeutic validation process. His work has been profiled in the New Yorker, 60 Minutes, the biography, His Brothers Keeper, and the documentary So Much So Fast.