Oncology Ventures: Announcing Investment in Kadance + Comedy

Oncology Ventures’ Mission: Save lives today by investing in the future of cancer care.

Oncology Ventures Investment in Kadance

The life insurance industry suffers from stagnant engagement. Traditional living benefits, such as accelerated death benefits or long-term care riders, function merely as economic contingency clauses (they provide liquidity only after a crisis has occurred). This results in missed opportunities for a meaningful means of policyholder engagement, early intervention and higher mortality for insurers.

Kadance flips the model from reactive payout to proactive intervention. By embedding precision diagnostics, physician support and care navigation directly into insurance policies, Kadance turns insurers into active participants in improving health outcomes.

Kadance is a genomics-based precision health management company operating at the intersection of life science, insurance and health management. The company commercializes a feature-rich living benefit rider that integrates pharmacogenomics, hereditary cancer risk testing and precision-guided oncology services directly into life, critical illness and long-term care insurance policies.

Kadance can be funded in multiple ways to align with carrier strategy and policyholder needs, including policyholder-paid, shared funding between the policyholder and carrier or fully funded by the carrier or reinsurer as part of policy expenses.

Kadance is offered through leading insurers, including Chubb, Nationwide, and Hannover Re. By embedding Kadance within policy economics or funding it directly, insurers can reduce long-term claims exposure, improve policyholder persistence and positively impact mortality outcomes.

This flexible funding approach creates true alignment of incentives. Insurers benefit when policyholders live longer, healthier lives. In doing so, carriers transform from distant payers into active health partners, playing a meaningful role in improving outcomes across the full customer journey.

Key components of the Kadance program include:

• Kadance Pharmacogenomic Test: DNA-based testing paired with clinical pharmacist consultations to identify the most effective medications and avoid potentially lethal adverse drug reactions.

• Kadance Hereditary Cancer Risk Test: To identify genetic cancer predispositions paired with genetic counseling to create a personalized risk-reduction plan and enable early, life-saving interventions.

• Precision Cancer Care Management: One-on-one oncology nurse navigation, expert case reviews, comprehensive advanced genomic tumor testing and clinical trial matching for members diagnosed with cancer to enable precision treatment and improve outcomes.

• Survivorship and Recovery: Continued oncology nurse navigation support, DNA-based recurrence monitoring and additional resources to support life beyond treatment.

Moving these features into a rider is a counterintuitive yet highly effective prevention strategy. Correcting and/or adding additional diagnosis information is essential for reducing mortality and avoiding the costs of ineffective, expensive treatments.

Kadance’s data confirms the power of this shift, showing a 90% “Day 1” engagement rate through immediate utilization of health services. This level of interaction is unheard of in an industry where engagement is traditionally nonexistent until a claim is filed. This immediate utility model drives both customer satisfaction and long-term policy persistence.

Crucially for life insurers, their intervention model has demonstrated a 2.1% absolute mortality reduction in high-risk seniors. This is a statistically significant outcome that alters the core risk profile of the insured.

Kadance has built a world-class team of oncology and precision health operators, led by Darren Rowe, former Managing Director of Champions Oncology and Founder / CEO of Reframe Cancer. Oncology Ventures is excited to invest in Kadance as they work to become the default precision oncology and genomic testing backbone for the life insurance industry.

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Comedy!

There’s a specific time of every adult dinner party where one of your friends says, “Guess what, I brought a new game that you are all going to love.” And everyone else has the exact same thought: Ah, bummer.

I was just enjoying my glass of wine and now I have to be lectured at and gaslit before I lose a game I happily didn’t know existed. Mind if I instead play one round of how early can I leave without seeming rude?

First, to get people to do it, they kick off with a “This is going to be super simple.” No simple thing has ever needed that sentence. They’ll then quickly mumble “You just collect wheat, trade sheep, oh and make sure you have good port access.”

Your friend explaining the rules of a game is the happiest guy in the world. Of course he is. It’s a socially acceptable way for him to talk for 20 minutes without interruption. He built a tiny universe where he is the emperor. And he always wins.

You know a game is going to be complicated when they use seven “trust me, it’ll make sense when we start playing” non sequiturs.

Why do we accept this? One person explains the game, and we all just agree he’s right. No credentials. No review process.

A board game is a social contract where one person narrates reality. It’s just gaslighting with props. “No, I definitely told you that rule. If I roll a 7, I take one of your cards.” The game becomes a series of retroactive explanations.

You make a move and he goes, “Ah… interesting choice.” Interesting choice?! I didn’t know I had multiple options here.

And finally, at some point, anywhere from three minutes to five hours later, the person explaining the rules will inevitably say “And… that’s game.” You won? I thought you were still walking through the instructions.

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Asks

1. We are hosting our annual Limited Partner event in Austin this fall. Do you have a recommendation of:

   • A unique idea you saw at an event that we should explore

   • Venue to host the event

   • Sponsors who would like to be in the room with 200 investors, start-up founders and oncology innovators