Elliott Gruskin, PhD

Elliott Gruskin is a respected R&D leader and global pharmaceutical operating executive with expertise in transforming innovative research concepts into commercial opportunities.  Most recently, he served as Executive Director, Research, Strategy & Innovation at Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, where he led cross-functional collaboration in a complex matrixed environment to achieve high impact business results.

Prior to joining Mallinckrodt, Dr. Gruskin spent more than a decade with DePuy Synthes in a number of senior executive positions in the Biomaterials Division, as Global Vice President of R&D and then Worldwide President.  In that role, he led a global organization with over 200 employees with R&D and manufacturing sites in the US and Switzerland. During his tenure as Divisional president the Biomaterials portfolio enjoyed double digit growth with $350 M in topline sales. Following the acquisition of Synthes by J&J in 2012, he became Worldwide President of DePuy Synthes Biomaterials before being appointed Global Lead for External Innovation and Enabling Technologies in Biomaterials.  During this time, he also served as an Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.  

A member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Roundtable on Biomedical Engineering Materials and Applications (BEMA), Dr. Gruskin’s diverse technical acumen includes biomaterials, orthopedics and wound healing, spinal cord injury and related CNS disorders, and convergent technologies including device-drug combination products.  He is the Inventor on 31 issued US patents and author of 25 scientific articles.  

Dr. Gruskin received a BS in Biochemistry with High Distinction in Research from the University of Rochester and a PhD in Biochemistry from Vanderbilt University where he was a Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology Predoctoral Fellow and a Harold Sterling Vanderbilt Scholar.  He completed Post-doctoral training in the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He began his pharmaceutical career with United State Surgical Corporation (now Covidien).