Robin Shah (Thyme Care, OneOncology, Flatiron Health) on Transforming the Cancer Patient Care Journey

About Thyme Care

Thyme Care, founded in 2020, is an oncology care management company providing high-touch, technology-enabled care navigation. With the mission of creating a better cancer journey for all, Thyme guides cancer patients and their caregivers through a complex healthcare system by providing personalized resources, support, and quick access to high-value care. The company aligns the incentives of patients, payers, and providers and coordinates integrated care that drives value and leads to better outcomes. They have raised $22M and are backed by venture firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer.

To learn more about Thyme Care and their mission to transform the cancer care journey, visit www.thymecare.com. You can also find them on LinkedIn at Thyme Care.

About Robin Shah

Robin has spent over 15 years working in digital health and oncology. Before founding Thyme Care, he was one of the first employees and VP of Marketing at Flatiron Health (acquired by Roche), then joined the founding team at OneOncology ($200M in funding, backed by General Atlantic). He holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and is passionate about transforming the patient oncology journey.

In this episode, we speak about lessons learned from working at digital health startups, the mission at Thyme Care, and his vision for the company. We also get career and life advice on founding and joining startups.

Episode Show Notes

• 01:25 Robin’s background in digital health, his 16-year journey in oncology, and joining Flatiron Health when there were just five people.
• 03:41 Biggest takeaway from Flatiron Health. To build something great in the healthcare technology and service space, you need to pair technologists with clinical experts. This creates an ecosystem of subject matter experts on both sides.
• 05:05 Thyme Care thesis and early days. Thyme Care is an oncology population management company focusing on technology-enabled care navigation. Simply put, they help cancer patients navigate through their care journey — from getting a diagnosis to dealing with this diagnosis. The origin story: Robin received countless calls from people in his network asking for advice after they or a friend had received a cancer diagnosis. No one knew where to turn to for support, and Robin knew this was a problem worth solving.
• 06:47 Why Robin decided to launch a company in the oncology space. Robin’s advice for building a digital health startup: deeply understand the problem. He knows oncology really, really well.
• 07:52. The problems that Flatiron, One Oncology, and Thyme Care are trying to solve. Flatiron (10 years ago): cancer patients needed access to clinical trials. One Oncology: there was no access to a standard set of care across the nation. Thyme Care: cancer patients should not feel lost or have questions unanswered throughout their healthcare journey. By solving this problem, Thyme can also drive lower costs through the entire system, thereby addressing population management issues specific to oncology.
• 10:46 The patient journey at Thyme Care. Thyme supports patients throughout their entire cancer journey. Each member is matched with a care team pod comprised of an enrollment specialist (informs patients of Thyme’s services), a care partner (guides patients on psycho-social, financial, and non-clinical needs), an oncology registered nurse, and a complex case nurse.
• 12:02 Thyme’s relationship with insurance companies. Risk-bearing entities have populations of people they are responsible for, yet navigating patients through their healthcare journeys is complicated and resource-intensive. Thyme Care provides a solution for the cancer segment, improving quality of care and health outcomes. Ultimately, this drives down the cost of care for insurance companies.
• 13:30 Thyme’s business model, aligned with the amount of value they can drive back to insurance companies (value defined as higher quality and lower costs).
• 14:02 How Thyme fits into the physician workflow, serving as a clinical wrap-around and added resource to clinicians delivering care.
• 14:45 Technology at Thyme Care. Thyme uses analytics to identify populations that need support, and which members within these populations need more or less support. They can then provide the right support for the right person at the right time (the “right does of Thyme care”).
• 16:59 Largest hurdles in the healthcare industry. Healthcare is a multi-segmented business — there are providers, insurance companies, employers, pharma, and patients. The key for startups is to understand the motivations of each player, then build a product that can support them all. Otherwise, you’re guaranteed to face resistance and friction along the way.
• 17:57 Fundraising and traction. On raising from Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Ventures, scaling to 90+ employees, and contracting with 300k+ lives.
• 19:22 Thyme’s strategies for scaling. They are hyper-focused on their industry and space.
• 21:20 How to scale responsibly as a digital health company. Thyme builds with purpose and always keeps the patient at the core of everything they do.
• 22:18 Learnings from scaling Flatiron and One Oncology, especially around financial management (how to make the right investments and manage burn).
• 23:07 Industry trends Robin is most excited about. Post Covid, the world has become much more accepting of technology in healthcare. His prediction: patients will continue to be more willing to engage in digital health solutions (and even prefer them). This will increase the demand to access care anytime, anywhere — people will come to expect care at their fingertips and become healthier as a result. The health insurance industry will also transform. Insurers are currently aggregators of populations and holders of risk. Looking ahead, Robin predicts that insurers will look to speciality solutions to manage risk for condition specific populations (for example, delegating oncology risk to Thyme Care). This would represent a shift in how care delivery is done from the physician’s perspective, moving toward a focus on value.
• 26:30 Robin’s thoughts on value-based care (VBC). Robin believes in the potential of VBC. However, he doesn’t believe physicians can transform from free-for-service to VBC without the appropriate resources (operational, technological, financial). There is currently a lack of investment in people and technology to support the transition, but eventually an ecosystem will emerge and the switch will occur.
• 27:48 How Thyme hopes to drive the VBC movement faster by helping providers, patients, and risk-bearing entities enter the space more seamlessly.
• 28:30 Biggest risk for digital health startups: a lack of domain expertise. You can’t build a solution for a problem if you don’t understand the problem. Flatiron founders came from Google and the ad-tech world, but took the time to deeply understand oncology (and surround themselves with subject matter experts).

Career Development Takeaways

• 31:12 Robin never thought about starting a company as “taking the leap into entrepreneurship.” Instead, he became a founder by focusing on the problem. In his words, “this is a really big problem and I want to solve it” *Note: Michelle Stephens, founder of Oath Care, echoed a similar sentiment in our conversation (episode 2)
• 32:23 Advice for students navigating post-college career plans: don’t follow the brand name or money. Optimize for learning.
• 33:08 Advice for anyone looking to find more meaning and purpose in their career: if you don’t get excited about your work, it probably doesn’t make sense to do it. Especially out of school, differences in compensation generally aren’t very large — if you have the flexibility, find a job where you are excited to make a difference.
• 35:12. Best piece of advice that Robin has ever received. 1) There’s no such thing as geniuses. If you work hard enough, you’ll often be able to achieve what you set out to do. 2) Even if you work hard or deserve something, you may not get it — and that’s ok. We aren’t entitled to anything and should see failures as learning opportunities.

We hope that you enjoy this conversation with Robin, and stay tuned for another episode next week!

If you have questions about the episode or want to suggest topics for future episodes, please email Jemina Opman-Auge (jemina@alevelcapital.com) and Anusha Rao (anusha@alevelcapital.com). If you enjoyed the show, please consider subscribing to A-Level Capital Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. We’re also on LinkedIn @A-Level Capital .