The most remarkable journeys often have humble and unforeseeable beginnings. Sometimes those who know us best nudge us in the wrong direction and complete strangers show us the way. The most gratifying stories, however, are those about people who never forget their roots and whom success prompts to give back and open doors for others – such is the biography of Dr. Simos Simeonidis.
Simos’ path took him from Greece to being a professor at Harvard Medical School to Managing Partner, CEO and CIO of Kos Biotechnology Partners. He is also Co-Founder, Chairman of the Board and interim CEO of Delsona Therapeutics, a company spun out of Columbia University. Along the way he gained experience he likes to devote to building a better future for Greece, and he is delighted that The Hellenic Initiative offers him the chance to contribute in various ways.
Born and raised in Athens, Simos is proud to have four-fold Greek roots – the village of Kerasia in the Peloponnese, Constantinople, and Trapezounta and Adana in Asia Minor.
He set sail on his journey with a passion for math and science since childhood. “My parents emphasized education and I wanted to make them happy.”
By high school in the 1980s, biology grabbed him. His late father was one of the first Greeks in the computers industry, toward which his mother nudged him, but his heart was in biology when he arrived in the United States – just in time for the biotech boom.
When he got to Chicago, his studies had a humble beginning at an inner city community college. Simos transferred to Loyola University and then went to Columbia University for his PhD, where he found himself in the used by renowned physician-scientist George Yancopoulos, one of his science idols, before he went to Regeneron – “OMG this is George’s lab!”
Next stop was Harvard Medical School, where he was a post doc fellow – the realization of another dream, reaching the pinnacle of Academia in this adopted country. “It would’ve made my dad proud. He loved America – he worked for Texaco… He was very excited when Jimmy Carter was elected, telling me ‘America is the greatest country in the world.’ ‘Why’ I asked him when I was seven, and he said “even a peanut farmer can become president. I had this image of America as a country where anything is possible.”
He lost his father at 16, and “my mother said he always wanted me to go to America to study.” She prodded him to go – a great sacrifice. “I had become the man of the house. Only now that I have kids, do I realize what she did – if I don’t see my two boys, 14 and 12, for half a day, I miss them.”
“I am so grateful to come to the United States” – a child of Asia Minor refugees who is now excited about helping groups like THI, which works to generate American-style opportunities for young Greeks.
His early career was a straight line to Academia – but the genomics revolution opened doors he never imagined were there. “Serendipitously I learned what a scientist could do with business knowledge in biotech… I was being recruited in the early 2000s by Millennium Pharmaceuticals and I randomly met their Business Development person. He was MD/MBA and I asked ‘why would a doctor do an MBA’ – and he told me. He was a crucial person for me and something clicked: ‘Wow. This is what I want to do.’”
After and MBA at Wharton, his first job was doing business development for Novartis Pharmaceuticals – then he learned about what he could do on Wall Street. He became an analyst there covering biotech stocks, finding a path towards becoming an investor in biotech, beginning at Sarissa Capital Management, which was founded by Greek-America Alex Denner. His goal was to run his own company, and that was reached with Kos, which invests in private and public companies, “a venture capital firm and a hedge fund” he said.
The jump from Harvard professor to CEO didn’t come from nowhere. “I always had an entrepreneurial side” – by osmosis from his father. “I didn’t realize at the time, but dad was an entrepreneur. He had three jobs: head of IT at Texaco, then he founded two little data processing companies.”
“I had a lot of motivation to succeed, to make my dad proud – and to provide for my sister and my mom.” Arriving in Chicago he lived the classic life of a Greek immigrant: busboy at one cousin’s diner, mopping floors at another’s fruit market, always grateful for the opportunities America offered.
All his experiences put him in a position to mentor others. “It’s something I love doing. I feel that even if I don’t have much time, it’s my moral responsibility – because I was helped by many people. I want to give back, and I like coaching… I recently had a conversation with THI Board President George Stamas at THI’s Summer Youth Academy. I said, ‘George, thank you for doing this’ and he said it’s because, ‘there are kids that didn’t have the chance to do this.” Simos said “I was that kid” and George said “me too!” That night “I went home and wrote a check for the Academy.”
He came to THI through Board Member Drew Behrakis, who knew his wife Elisa Konofagou – a renowned scientist and professor at Columbia University. “Drew invited us to THI’s Gala as his guest and I asked, ‘what is THI?’
Simos became excited as he learned more and more and met its staff and leadership – “they have made me even more proud to be Greek. They are such great role models.” He believes THI is “doing God’s work in Greece… you are helping the poor” and creating opportunities for people who need mentors to learn what to do with the talent God gave them. He especially appreciates THI’s ability to vet the most effective and promising charitable organizations and startups. “And they have good ideas about where the money should go.”
So does Simos. He is one of those helping Greece with vital public-private partnerships, especially between universities and high tech firms. “I was recruited to be on a task force with biotech luminaries to do a study about how Greece can establish an innovative biopharma industry. We presented it to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.”
“At Kos we are starting a fund that will only be investing in Greece…. I have been meeting with the heads of the institutes of molecular biology in Greece and talking about their best scientists and spinning out ideas to companies that can generate jobs” – working to make Greece a high tech hub and reversing brain drain.
