Advice from my ‘whirlwind’ biopharma career so far
Michael Koniares ’22 MBA will be the first to admit his life since graduating from Kellogg has been “a bit of a whirlwind.” Says Koniares, “In this short time, I have experienced life at a large company and at a small biotech firm, I’ve been through an acquisition, and I’ve been part of the holy grail of biotech: bringing a successful drug to market that allows patients in need to have more good days. Sitting at Kellogg three years ago, I could not have planned this path, but I would not change a thing.” Here, Koniares charts his career path and shares how Kellogg helped him achieve his goals more quickly than he ever thought possible.
I began my career at Chestnut Partners, Inc in Boston, a healthcare focused boutique investment bank, with the intention of gaining transaction experience for a long career in finance. Most of my early client engagements were biotech companies looking to raise money, partner with large pharma, or contemplating being acquired. The challenge of navigating the tradeoffs inherent to the industry hooked me on biotech and led me to want to transition in-house, instead of being an external advisor.
I viewed my MBA, and Kellogg specifically, as a way to make this transition. At this point in my career, I had interacted with many companies, but I knew I had a lot to gain from broadening my perspective beyond a single product or company to really understanding the tradeoffs and value drivers for a wider range of stakeholders.
I took advantage of many healthcare opportunities during my first year including the Healthcare Club and Healthcare Pathway course work. In my second year, I served as a teaching assistant for the Pharmaceutical Strategy class, co-led the Pharmaceutical Interview Prep Group and took part in the inaugural Healthcare Deep Dive.
I was also fortunate to be selected for the first cohort of Hawryluk Scholars, which provided opportunities to have conversations with industry leaders and greater access to healthcare professors; it continues to be an important part of my Kellogg network. These experiences, and the conversations with classmates and professors that spanned them, are what I think back to as the key to my Kellogg experience.
After graduating with my MBA, I had two near term goals: to transition into a biopharma industry role and to expand my work experience beyond small clinical stage companies, which most of my banking clients had been.
I was drawn to the rotational programs at larger companies for the opportunity to explore different areas of the organizations, and so I joined the Commercial Leadership Development Program at Takeda for both my internship and full-time after graduation. It was a great experience in learning how a large commercial organization operates.
While I was in the process of selecting my second rotational position, I was contacted about an open chief of staff position at ImmunoGen. I had always planned to make my way back to a small company after about 5-10 years, but after one conversation with the ImmunoGen CEO, I was taking the opportunity seriously and thinking of the direct exposure to a CEO and management team as a way to accelerate my industry experience.
One month to the day after I joined ImmunoGen, the company announced the positive results of their phase 3 trial, making our product the first therapy to show an overall survival benefit within a specific biomarker defined population in ovarian cancer. This positive data set in motion a series of events that put me right in the middle of biotech decision making: fundraising, geographic expansion, internal capital allocation and future clinical trial design. That journey ultimately led to an acquisition by AbbVie for $10.1 billion this past February.
As I explore new opportunities, each experience I’ve had, from banking to Kellogg, and from large company to small company, has contributed to my view of the industry and to what I want to do next, which is to help bring more impactful medicines to market. Here are three key things I’ve learned along the way:
1. Get comfortable with risk
Biopharma is inherently a risky industry with a very low probability of success for any given product. In hindsight, my move to ImmunoGen looks like an easy decision given the success that ensued, but I had to get comfortable with the risk/reward tradeoff of leaving a secure job at a large company for a job that could disappear at any moment with a failed clinical trial.
2. Be opportunistic
When I joined Takeda I envisioned being there for at least five years and only then thinking about transitioning to a smaller company environment. An opportunity arose to rapidly accelerate my industry experience by working closely with an experienced management team and I took it, but I was only comfortable doing so given my past experiences including my time at Kellogg.
3. Know where you can add value
Biotech is a unique industry to join with a business background because of the technical nature of drug development. Many company leaders are MDs or PhDs, if not both. It’s important to recognize where you can add value for a company without a scientific background. Kellogg is key for this.
There is a lot of value in bringing experience in finance, strategy, people and process, but this is not always apparent to scientifically focused teams. Overcoming this requires being opportunistic and having a strong network. Not all positions will be posted publicly, so it’s important to be plugged into the industry and ready to make a move when opportunities arise.