Dick Allen has over 35 years experience in the health care industry,
both as an operating executive and as a seed capital investor in
early-stage medical device and health care service companies. He
spent the first ten years of his career with Baxter International
during its heydays of the 1960s and ‘70s. While at Baxter,
Dick held management positions in several functional areas, including
a four-year stint in Brussels as the top finance executive for all
of Europe and a two-year assignment as the general manager of a $45
million business unit with 27 locations and 350 employees.
After leaving Baxter, Dick co-founded Caremark, the venture-backed
pioneer of the commercial home infusion therapy market. His initial
responsibilities as a vice president of the company were for finance
and operations, and he was also instrumental in the development of
the strategic plan for the company. Caremark enjoyed rapid growth,
establishing branch offices across the country and reaching annualized
revenues of $225 million within eight years of its founding. After
a successful public offering in 1982, the company was acquired five
years later by Baxter for $575 million.
Since 1987, Dick has been President of DIMA Ventures, a private
firm that provides seed capital and board-level support for start-up
companies in the medical device and health care service markets.
In this capacity, he has been a board member and founder or early-stage
private investor in a number of companies. He co-founded Pyxis Corporation,
a manufacturer and marketer of hospital-based automated prescription
storage and dispensing devices. Dick helped to define the strategic
direction for the company and served on the executive committee of
its board of directors. Pyxis grew rapidly to revenues of $200 million
and net profit of $35 million within nine years of its founding.
After going public in 1992, the company was subsequently acquired
by Cardinal Health for roughly $1 billion in 1996.
Dick has played an active board/early investor role for such companies
as Menlo Care (I.V. access devices; acquired by Johnson & Johnson),
Intraluminal Devices (AAA stent/graft technology; acquired by CardioVascular
Dynamics), Flex-Foot (prosthetic devices; acquired by OSSUR North
America), Micro Therapeutics (minimally invasive devices for neurovascular
diseases; public), Med-Mart (home respiratory therapy services; private),
Alteer (internet-based software for physician offices; private),
Sub-Q (femoral artery closure devices; private), and IntelliDot (healthcare
information technology; private). He currently serves as the Chairman
of the Board for Alteer, and is on the board of directors at Med-Mart,
Sub-Q, and IntelliDot. Dick was also an early-stage private investor
in several other health care companies that went on to enjoy significant
success. These include Informed Access (triage information systems;
acquired by Access Health), Tropix (diagnostics; acquired by Perkin
Elmer), and Genetics Institute (biotechnology; acquired by American
Home Products).
Between his Caremark and DIMA experiences, Dick enjoyed a ten-month
volunteer stint as the Southern California Regional Director for
a U.S. Senate Campaign. He also taught for four years as a Lecturer
in Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, offering
a course in Entrepreneurship to second-year MBAs. He is currently
the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Hoag Memorial Hospital
Presbyterian in Newport Beach, California. He is a past Chairman
of the Board of Directors of the Orange County Business Council and
a past recipient of the Director of the Year award from the Orange
County Forum for Corporate Directors. He and his wife are active
in the Orange County chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation,
an organization focused on raising money to fund diabetes research.
Dick received his B.S. degree (cum laude) from Yale University and
an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He
was born and raised in Sioux City, Iowa and has been married to his
wife, Mary, for 37 years. They live in Newport Beach, California
and have two grown children and two grandchildren.