“When you hear that six letter word: ‘cancer,’ you’re in the most horrible time you may ever be in,” says Robin Shah (R), here shown with Bobby Green (L)
Thyme Care
Thyme Care is helping around 3,000 patients and plans to use the funds to scale its value-based care model.
When a patient is told they have been diagnosed with cancer, it can be both terrifying and confusing. From medical jargon to drug names to complicated procedures, they’re left with a barrage of information to interpret and retain. On top of that are their practical concerns about how to pay for treatment or even arrange transportation to their appointments. The sheer volume of things a patient has to juggle can be overwhelming, which can make it hard to ensure they receive proper care.
Robin Shah and Bobby Green want to simplify the process and help cancer patients navigate the complications of managing their disease. Their company, Thyme Care, aims to provide 24/7 support guiding patients to getting the care they need. On Monday, the company announced it has raised a $60 million Series B round co-led by Town Hall Ventures and Foresite Capital. The new infusion of capital brings the company’s total funding to $83 million.
“When we thought about Thyme Care, it really stemmed from when we got calls where we were talking to people before they even had a cancer diagnosis,” says Shah, 36. “And we were talking to people about what happens after their treatment. And we thought, to really solve this you have to build something that has people alongside patients in their journey.”
Shah and Green, 57, founded Thyme Care in July 2020, but its origin story begins more than a decade earlier. At that time, the two were working at Flatiron Health, a technology company that aims to provide oncologists with the best information about care for their patients. Green, a physician, had joined Flatiron after nearly 20 years of practice in cancer care. The two had gotten to know each other well by the time Shah left Flatiron in 2018 to cofound OneOncology, a healthcare startup that aims to improve the standard of care for cancer in different communities by investing in and collaborating with oncology practices.
During his time at OneOncology, Shah realized that while the work of supporting doctors was important for care, cancer patients also needed support during their course of treatment, especially in dealing with challenges that patients faced in managing their care outside of hospitals and doctors’ offices. So he reached out to Green in 2019 and over the course of multiple conversations, the two developed the kernel of an idea that would become Thyme Care.
“All of these things that break down outside the oncology office are not only bad for the patient experience, but they also drive up the cost of care for a variety of different reasons,” says Green, 57. “And so what Thyme Care does is we partner with both health plans as well as oncologists.”
For its nearly 3,000 cancer patients, Thyme Care operates as a liaison with their care teams both in and out of the hospital. For example, after a hospital visit they can use Thyme Care’s tools to talk to healthcare professionals on hand to answer any questions that might pop in their heads afterwards. Thyme Care can also communicate a patient’s needs to their doctors in the event complications arise in the course of treatment.
Outside of the hospital, Thyme Care helps patients manage communication with doctors, primary care physicians, radiologists, surgeons and the other medical professionals involved in their treatment plan. Patients can even use Thyme’s tools to handle the logistics of their care, such as ensuring that they have transportation to get to and from appointments, or making sure they can get needed prescriptions.
To get its services in front of patients, the company partners with health insurance companies with both conventional and Medicare Advantage plans, oncology practices and primary care physician groups that support cancer patients. It’s currently partnered with health insurers Amerihealth and Clover Health, as well as the American Oncology Network, an organization providing a network for community cancer specialists.
Patients have access to Thyme free of charge through their health insurance plans. The way the company makes money is through a value-based care model. With its care coordination tools, Thyme aims within this model to both improve patient outcomes and lower the cost of care. Thyme itself generates revenue when those costs are successfully reduced. “If we don’t generate savings, we don’t get paid,” says Shah.
For most patients, Thyme’s tools are easily accessed by smartphone app or through their computers. For patients who have difficulty accessing the internet or are uncomfortable with technology, the company can reach out in other ways, such as a simple phone call.
Thyme isn’t the only company that aims to help patients navigate their healthcare. Karkinos Health and Jasper Health also aim to help cancer patients, while bigger players like Quantum Health and Health Joy help patients across all healthcare segments. That said, there are a lot of opportunities for Thyme in the space, says Aaron DeGagne, a healthcare analyst at Pitchbook, who notes that its focus on cancer care gives it an edge. “It doesn’t seem to me that there’s a lot of direct competitors to Thyme Care. I think that’s because it’s a small, nascent market,” he says. “And there’s not a lot of scale right now specifically in cancer care navigation.”
David Whelan, cofounder and general partner at Town Hall Ventures, seconds that assessment. “When someone has cancer, the oncologist becomes that primary quarterback and so I think a lot of people on the provider side and on the payer side will acknowledge that this is one of those areas where it makes a lot of sense to have a specialized oncology solution,” he says.
Because cancer care often spans years, Thyme also has a chance to build its patient base through word of mouth, DeGagne says. He adds that Thyme also has good opportunities for scaling its growth because it’s already partnered with a wide network.
For their part, Shah and Green are keen on using the company’s latest influx of investment dollars to focus on scaling their technology and growing its reach among patients. For example, one of the company’s next steps is to add large employers as a customer segment. The company also plans to hire more people (it has 123 employees now) in order to facilitate its growth.
“What we’re going to use that capital to do is continue to invest in our technology that we built to enable our entire intervention to scale,” says Shah. “And the growth that we’re planning towards, we know that technology enablement is going to be so critical for that success.”
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