President, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, LLC
ChangeMaker Committee

Bill Taranto is President, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund LLC (GHIF), President, Merck Global Health Private Equity (GHIPE), LLC, and Vice President, Global Health Innovation Group (GHI). Mr. Taranto is the founder of GHI and is responsible for leading the GHI capability for Merck. The Merck Global Health Innovation Fund was established in late 2010 as a strategic response to the challenges surrounding Merck’s core business of discovering, developing and marketing innovative drugs and vaccines.

GHI deploys its evergreen $500 million fund focused on identifying opportunities that are adjacent to Merck’s core business of pharmaceuticals and vaccines. In the last ten years, GHI has committed over $800 million across 70 portfolio companies. Some investments include Livongo Health, Preventice Solutions, Inc., Navigating Cancer, Syapse, Strata, Liaison Technologies, Trinetx, Ciox and Cleardata.

Mr. Taranto reports into the SVP, Finance Planning Analysis, Business and Financial Planning as part of the Merck Strategy office. Mr. Taranto is a member of the Merck Innovation Ventures Board, a group that manages the identification and funding of portfolio investments; and is also Chairman of the GHI Fund LLC Management Board. Mr. Taranto is also Chairman of the Board, Preventice Solutions Inc., prior Board Member Livongo Health, Advisory Board Member Global Corporate Venturing and Advisory Board Member Health X and Chairman, Advisory Board to Columbia HITLAB.

Prior to joining Merck, Mr. Taranto spent 18 years at Johnson & Johnson in various marketing, sales, investing and business development roles with increasing responsibility. In his previous position at J&J where he spent 14 of his 18 years as, VP, Health Care Strategy & Venture, where he was responsible for evaluating and creating new health care business models through venture capital and acquisitions. Mr. Taranto started his career rotating through sales and marketing positions, including an assignment in Beerse, Belgium. Prior to joining J&J, Mr. Taranto spent eight years in investment banking. Mr. Taranto has a Bachelor of Business Administration from St. Bonaventure University.