Cancer care is complicated and costly, and Thyme Care wants to simplify the maze. Morgan Health led the round, with Humana and CVS Health Ventures participating as strategic health-care backers, alongside AlleyCorp, HealthQuest Capital, and a16z Bio + Health. The raise values Thyme Care at more than $2 billion, about twice its Series D valuation from less than a year ago.
To widen its scope, Thyme Care is forming a new parent entity called Thyme Companies to build businesses that attack the gaps in the delivery, access, and payment of cancer care. Co-founders Robin Shah and Bobby Green have long talked about fixing "the care in between" - the questions and issues that pop up between appointments. As Shah put it, "When Bobby and I started this business six years ago, we had this vision that we needed to go after all the white spaces that were being constantly overlooked in oncology."
Shah said Diephuis has been a significant driver of the company's progress, and the shift frees Shah to focus on building Thyme Companies, which he called "the platform for us to build out other initiatives or full companies that are focused on these [oncology] problems."
Shah also said the timing is right to take this next step. On going public, he noted the company does not have any "near-term viewpoint" on an IPO, but will keep weighing public and private financing options that "will allow us to move faster, because we think this is a problem that impacts everyone in the country, let alone the world."
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First on the agenda for the new platform is cutting cancer drug costs by increasing adoption of lower-cost biosimilars that match brand-name therapies in clinical effectiveness. Shah said that, so far, cancer biosimilars have not delivered the savings patients were promised. Thyme Companies intends to partner with health plans and providers in order to unlock substantial savings.
Another early focus will be expanding access to clinical trials and making enrollment easier. Shah said bottlenecks in enrollment are limiting access to potentially beneficial studies and slowing development timelines. The first business under Thyme Companies is set to debut later this year.
Thyme Care's virtual navigation platform is now available to over 10.5 million people across all 50 states, and the organization oversees in excess of $7 billion in oncology spending. Revenue topped $125 million last year - five times the prior year - and Shah said the company is profitable with positive free cash flow. With a bigger balance sheet, the team is eyeing investments it could not have made three years ago, plus potential acquisitions and new hires. Or as Shah summed it up: "We have a team that is focused on being together for the long term to solve problems in healthcare with a hyperfocus on oncology."
For your money, the takeaway is straightforward: this is a growing, profitable private company now valued above $2 billion, using new capital and a holding-company model to build multiple businesses aimed at lowering drug costs and opening more trial doors for patients.