Philip David Segal was born in Essex, England in the 1958. He emigrated to America in 1975 at the age of seventeen, where he studied film at San Deigo State University. After graduating he became involved in the US television industry, first as a casting assistant and then as an literary agent.

In 1985 he became a Director of Drama Development at Columbia Pictures, after which he moved over to ABC Television as a programming executive, becoming involved in such programmes as Twin Peaks, Thirtysomething and China Beach.

In 1991 he joined Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, where he quickly became Vice President of Amblin Television, overseeing the production of SeaQuest DSV, Earth 2 and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

It was while he was at Amblin that he first gained control over the creation of a new series of Doctor Who, working in conjunction with fellow English expatriate Peter Wagg (Producer of Max Headroom) to create the early drafts of what eventually became the Doctor Who television movie (informally known as Enemy Within) in 1996.

A fan since the age of five, when Doctor Who first began in 1963, it had long been his dream to produce his own version. While still wishing to juggle the needs of the various parties, his love of the programme still informed such decisions as the casting of a British actor as the Doctor, Liverpudlian actor Paul McGann. It was also ultimately his decision to bring back Sylvester McCoy as the seventh incarnation.

Philip Segal is currently an Executive Producer with his own company, Polestar, through which he has been a Producer on such series as Earth: Final Conflict and Mutant X.

He has also directed an episode of Mutant X and directed/written a direct-to-video movie, Hobbs End.