Gregory C. Simon
Vice President, Scientific Affairs and Distinguished Lilly Research Scholar, Infectious Diseases, Eli Lilly and Company

Greg Simon is Senior Vice President, Worldwide Policy, Pfizer Inc. Mr. Simon leads a global team of professionals in: 1) worldwide government policy, 2) science policy, 3) economic policy and research, and 4) international policy. Simon also serves as an advisor to the CEO in coordinating the company's efforts in Healthcare Reform. Greg comes to Pfizer after a distinguished career as a Senior Congressional staff member in the House and Senate, as the Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Al Gore, as a successful policy consultant and most recently as the President of FasterCures/The Center for Accelerating Medical Solutions, a center of the Milken Institute.

During his tenure as Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Al Gore from 1993 to 1997, Greg focused on economic, science and technology issues. In that position he oversaw a number of initiatives, including the programs of the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Human Genome Project, and the development of the regulatory framework for biotechnology products. He played a leading role in a variety of White House policies and programs including FDA reform efforts at the time. Greg served as then-Sen. Gore's Legislative Director from 1991-1993. From 1985 to 1991, Greg was the Staff Director of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

Following his government service, Greg was CEO of Simon Strategies, a consulting firm focusing on clients in biotechnology, health care, technology and information technology, among others.

Starting in 2003, Mr. Simon worked with Mike Milken to build FasterCures into an organization valued and recognized for catalyzing systematic change in the process of discovery and development of new therapies for deadly and debilitating diseases. In October 2008, Nature Medicine named Greg one of 10 influential people to watch in biomedical policy and noted that he is among a "handful of influential people who quietly help keep the wheels of biomedical science turning."

Under Greg's leadership, FasterCures;

• Created the FasterCures Philanthropy Advisory Service, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This initiative accelerates and increases the flow of philanthropic support to nonprofit medical research organizations by providing in-depth data on the methods, goals, and potential impacts of nonprofit medical research organizations engaged in specific disease areas;


• Promoted innovation in disease research and supported the activities of organizations engaged in cutting-edge research through The Redstone Acceleration and Innovation Network (TRAIN);
• Worked effectively to ensure that the special needs and challenges of clinical research are understood by those responsible for building and implementing electronic health record (EHR) systems and the emerging Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN);


• Advocated for increasing the resources and authorities available to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and for increasing the focus on and effectiveness of translational research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH);


• Created BioBank Central (www.biobankcentral.org), a health information system that serves as an accurate and timely source of news and knowledge about biorepositories and their critical role in research and therapy development;


• Explored best practices and promising approaches for improving clinical trials and created the Patients Helping Doctors program and site (www.patientshelpingdoctors.org) as a resource for patients and professionals committed to reinventing clinical trials.

Greg has served as a member of the National Health Council's Board of Directors, and the Google Health Advisory Council. He currently serves as a Trustee of the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, the Leadership Council of the Life Sciences Institute at the University of Michigan, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers' Montage Group, which advises its Health Industries practice. He chairs the Policy and Ethics Advisory Board for Navigenics, a genetic testing company. He is a founding Board member of SmartBrief, an innovative news and information company.

Greg received his law degree from the University of Washington in 1983. He is a member of the Washington State Bar and practiced two years at the firm of Roberts and Shefelman in Seattle in commercial litigation and intellectual property. A native of Arkansas, Greg attended the University of Arkansas, where he was awarded a B.A. in history summa cum laude in 1973; he attended the University of Vienna in Austria from 1971-72. Greg lives in Bethesda, Maryland with his wife Margo Reid and their two children.