Dr. Owens is the Women’s Health Lead, U.S. Medical Affairs, at AbbVie. She is involved in the direction, planning, execution, and interpretation of clinical trials dedicated to delivering high-quality clinical data supporting overall product scientific and business strategy.
Dr. Owens is dedicated to ensuring all women have access to care and recently led late-stage clinical research on a new treatment option for symptomatic uterine fibroids that successfully recruited and retained nearly 800 women, including a significant number of African American women, a group typically underrepresented in research. Findings from this work were recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. This is the first FDA-approved non-surgical, oral medication to treat heavy menstrual bleeding associated with fibroids.
Dr. Owens’ parents passed down a belief that has guided her throughout her life — that we all have the responsibility to be of service to others. She has applied this principle in every aspect of her career, which has included clinical practice, television medical contributor, lead strategic health care consultant, and medical director in the medical device and pharmaceutical industry. For more than 20 years she has been involved in global efforts focused on improving health care and education for women in six of the seven continents.
Prior to joining AbbVie, Dr. Owens was an assistant clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology, director of the Division of Industry Collaborative Research and chief medical officer for the Office of Translational Technologies at Morehouse School of Medicine. She is a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist and remains an adjunct clinical assistant professor at Morehouse School of Medicine. Dr. Owens received her bachelor’s in physiology from the University of California, Davis, and her MD from the University of Michigan Medical School.