Terren Scott Peizer | |
---|---|
Born | |
Alma mater | Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania |
Occupation | Financier |
Website | www |
Terren Scott Peizer is an investor; financier; and founder, chairman and CEO of Ontrak.[1][2] He is also chairman of the Los Angeles-based investment company Acuitas Group Holdings.[3]
Peizer has held various senior executive positions within several technology and biotech companies. In the 1980s, he was a bond trader at Drexel Burnham Lambert.[4][5]
Peizer was born in 1959, and raised in Beachwood, Ohio.[6] He graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.[7]
Peizer began his career at Goldman Sachs[7] and First Boston.[8] Michael Milken then hired Peizer as a bond salesman at Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1985.[9] Peizer received a $3.5 million dollar salary, and a $500,000 loan to invest in the partnership.[10] Peizer worked directly under (and at the same desk as) Milken, whom he admired, sometimes pretending to be him on the phone.[8]
When investigations into Milken's illegal activities started, Peizer agreed to provide material evidence to prosecutors in exchange for immunity.[4] Peizer later claimed he felt "compelled" to testify against Milken,[9] although he (Peizer) was not specifically the subject of the investigation.[6]
In 1989, Peizer purchased a minor league basketball team, the Omaha Racers.[11][12] He sold his majority stake a year later.[13]
Following his departure from Drexel Burnham Lambert, Peizer took on leadership roles at a series of medical and technology companies and promoted their stocks.[14] In 1991 he became Chairman of Urethane Technologies (then UTI Chemicals), which produced bicycle tires.[15] He exited the company in 1994;[16] it went bankrupt in 1997.[17]
From 1993 to 1995, Peizer was Chairman of CMS Enhancements (a subsidiary of Ameriquest), which produced computer parts.[18] From 1997 to 1999, he was president of Hollis-Eden, a pharmaceutical company that was developing a drug to treat HIV/AIDS.[9][17] In August 1999, Peizer became chairman of Tera Computer Company, a manufacturer of supercomputers. At Tera, Peizer raised funding and led the acquisition of Cray from SGI in March 2000. The merged company took the name Cray, Inc.[19] Peizer left the chairman role at Cray in December 2000 but stayed with the company as a director.[20]
Peizer founded Hythiam, an addiction treatment company, in 2004.[21] According to Peizer, he became interested in addiction treatment because of his half-brother's struggles with addiction.[14][21] In 2007, 60 Minutes and The Dallas Morning News criticized Peizer after Hythiam circumvented clinical studies and government approval when bringing Prometa, a treatment program for methamphetamine addiction, to market.[22][23]
In 2011, Hythiam changed its name to Catasys, retaining Peizer as chairman and CEO of the company.[24]
In 2018, Peizer became CEO and director of BioVie, a pharmaceutical company.[3] In July 2020, Catasys, of which Peizer is chairman and CEO, changed its name to that of its Ontrak product.[25]
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Idelman and his wife and business partner, Sheri Idelman, bought the minor-league Omaha Racers in 1990.
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Category:1959 births
Category:American investment bankers
Category:Drexel Burnham Lambert
Category:Goldman Sachs people
Category:Living people
Category:People from Beachwood, Ohio