Colon cancer scare the spark for ex-banker’s health care venture capital fund
- Simone Song prioritised work over health, until a colonoscopy six years ago. A biopsy revealed no cancer, but she resolved to help others with the disease
- She founded a venture capital fund focused on innovative cancer treatments, dementia, and chronic conditions arising from heart disease and diabetes
Simone Song Hong-fang was 26 when she first had polyps removed from her colon and learned she would have to undergo a regular colonoscopy – an exam to detect changes or abnormalities in the large intestine and rectum. She had a family history of colon cancer; her grandfather had died of the disease.
“Sometimes after a colonoscopy one, two or three polyps were discovered, so it was important for me to continue with this regime,” says the 56-year-old Hongkonger.
While Song understood the necessity of the invasive exams, as her investment banking career took off she sometimes skipped screening for a few years. “Work was the centre of my life,” she says matter-of-factly.
While at Goldman Sachs as a managing director responsible for investment banking and activities in Asia, she would fly overseas and return home the same week – and almost every week. “That’s how banking ladies were trained to be: we were iron ladies,” she says, explaining how her body adjusted to long hours and extensive travel.
Then, in 2015, she got the scare of her life.
