Prem Tumkosit

In February of 2019, when he was 36, Tumkosit became the youngest-ever managing director at the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, an investment arm of the drug giant—putting him in a position of outsize influence in health care startups. The innovation fund is focused on investing in firms in the digital health and health care IT space. Tumkosit specializes in backing those kinds of startups, including companies like Livongo, which helps people with chronic illnesses manage their care, and Strata Oncology, which focuses on precision medicine in cancer care. As a native of Texas, the son of immigrants from Thailand, and a self-identified gay man, Tumkosit has also seen the obstacles to health care access faced by less advantaged populations—a familiarity that fuels his passion. “Seeing my own immigrant parents with chronic conditions painfully navigating the U.S. health care system and all of its challenges has always stuck with me,” Tumkosit tells Fortune, adding that it’s “why I became interested in health care in the first place.”