Andrew Senyei of Enterprise Partners Crossed a Medical Bridge Between Hungary and San Diego
Venture capitalist Andrew Senyei still remembers the first complete sentence he so cheerfully spoke in English: “Wonder Bread helps build strong bodies 12 ways.”
As a youngster, Senyei would have made any television sponsor proud. A newcomer to America, the Hungarian refugee spent endless hours religiously reciting advertising slogans in his extended family’s living room in Cleveland.
“I learned to speak English by watching television,” admits Senyei, general partner at Enterprise Partners in San Diego. The group manages an estimated $435 million in capital, funding nearly 100 technology-based firms in Southern California.
“There weren’t many venture capitalists around where I grew up,” Senyei says jokingly about his birthplace of Budapest, Hungary.
Born in 1950, the son of an accountant at the University of Budapest and a homemaker, the Senyei family was among the few Hungarians who managed to flee the country during the 1956 anti-Communist revolution.
A poster child for the American Dream, Senyei has achieved it all: education, money, success, family and home.
Senyei, 50, was the first in his family to graduate from college, as well as medical school. He started various biotech firms, including Molecular Biosystems Inc. in San Diego and Adeza Biomedical Corp. in Sunnyvale.
Local Successes
For the past 13 years, Senyei has been raising money and giving hope to promising early stage biotech and high-tech firms in California.
Among his local investments are Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc., Nanogen, and Discovery Partners International Inc.
At first sight, Senyei, who these days articulates in English well beyond bread commercials, fits the role of an all-American.
Dressed casually in a polo shirt and slacks, Senyei reflects pure California living. Little reveals his Hungarian past, though it’s not far beneath the surface.
He admits crossing cultures wasn’t always easy.
“In growing up, you feel like your background is a little different than others. It starts with the language you speak at home, the foods you eat , the ones that are really fattening and good (goulash and wienerschnitzel),” he says.
Senyei gives a sobering account of the escape from Hungary. His parents wrapped their two young children , Senyei and his sister , in blankets to keep them from crying, as they ran across fields to Austria. The Senyeis waited three months in a refugee camp before U.S. immigration officials granted them visas to start a new life.
In Cleveland, the Senyeis spent six months with their extended family. Then came the family’s first job opportunity. With no money and limited English skills, the Senyeis did what they had to do to survive , three years of laboring on a farm.
“We lived in the caretaker’s quarters in the barn and we took care of the farm, the horses and everything for about three years,” Senyei recalls.
From Cleveland To L.A.
In 1959, the opportunity for a better life arrived. By then Senyei’s father had acquired enough English language skills to restart his accounting career. He took a job at a small private firm in Cleveland.
In 1962, the Senyeis moved to Los Angeles at the advice of their doctor, who prescribed a warmer climate for his mother’s arthritis.
The American dream was beginning to take shape. Senyei’s father landed a job as a controller for a technology firm in Hollywood. His mother did data-entry for Universal Studios.
Senyei, an avid swimmer in high school, also succeeded. His athleticism won him two scholarships.
In 1968, after graduating high school, Senyei attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Senyei says he was fascinated with becoming a physician early in life.
Although he didn’t know much about it, he says the idea of combining sciences and working with people intrigued him.
During his senior year, Senyei took part in an exchange program with CalTech University studying molecular biology.
Fascinated by the emerging field of molecular biology, Senyei contemplated graduate school. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1972, Senyei remained at Occidental to pursue graduate school.
By 1974, however, he decided to study medicine after all and do research on the side.
He enrolled in medical school at Northwestern University in Chicago. The Windy City was wonderful, Senyei says in hindsight, although he didn’t have much time to enjoy it.
He worked at the laboratory for about 18 months, researching ways to deliver anti-cancer drugs to selective cancers.
His roommate and lab partner, Kenneth Widder , now a partner at the San Diego-based venture capital firm Windamere Venture Partners, LLC and CEO of two biotech firms , shared Senyei’s entrepreneurial vision.
“We were roommates, best friends, did research together and licensed the technology we developed to Eli Lilly,” Widder says.
Armed with patents on how to deliver cancer drugs magnetically to tumors, and $1.5 million from private investors, the two friends decided to start their own firm in 1979.
Senyei took a three-year break from pursuing his residency program at UC Irvine to head Molecular Biosystems in Sorrento Valley , a job that entailed frequent traveling.
In 1982, the unexpected happened during a flight to Chicago.
Senyei invited a flight attendant named JoAnn to join him in having a cup of coffee. They agreed to meet again, so Senyei wrote down her phone number.
“It was the worst telephone discussion I ever had in my life,” Senyei says without offering details. But, defying logic, Senyei decided to call again months later.
“We went out and three months later were engaged,” he says. They married in 1983.
That same year Senyei went back to UC Irvine to finish his residency in obstetrics and gynecology. From 1984 to 1986, Senyei was a faculty member, did clinical work and consulted venture capital firms at UC Irvine.
Career Decision
By 1988, Senyei, who had been working with Enterprise Partners before, decided to pursue venture capital full-time.
“They said, ‘You seem to enjoy birthing companies more than babies,'” Senyei recalls.
And he did.
One of his success stories was the revamping of Sunnyvale-based Adeza Biomedical Corp., which makes diagnostic products for women’s reproductive health care.
While at Adeza, Senyei won awards from the March of Dimes in 1998 and 1999 for developing a test that detects fetal fibronectin, a protein found in pregnant women. The test was granted expedited approval by the Food and Drug Administration in 1995 for use in women with signs of premature birth.
Paralleling his success in 1995 was the move to San Diego. Senyei said he was intrigued by the success of the local biomedical and wireless industry.
But he also wanted to offer his three children , Alison, 15, Kelly, 14, and Grant, 12 , the best education possible.
“Education was the No. 1 priority in our household,” Senyei says. His parents rightfully thought it was the great equalizer and the key to success in this country, he says.
At The Bishop’s School in La Jolla, Senyei is actively involved in raising money to help enroll students whose parents don’t have the financial means to send them to a private school.
“Sometimes people forget about what this country has to offer,” Senyei says.
Perhaps, it’s a characteristic of people who have lived under a totalitarian regime to relate so closely to opportunities so often taken for granted by Americans who never experienced anything less than freedom, he says.
