🎙️ Chicago Futurist Vol. 14 with Feyi Ayodele, Founder and CEO of CancerIQ

🧠 World's Largest OCD Network is Expanding in Chicago

♾️ OneTwoLoop: One Week In

📅 9 Events in Chicago This Week

The best diagnostics in the world only matter if patients actually complete them. That’s the gap Feyi Ayodele is focused on: making sure patients follow through on cancer screening and diagnostics.

Founded in Chicago, CancerIQ helps health systems turn insight into action, guiding patients to the right next step across prevention, early detection, and treatment.

Here’s our conversation:

FA: While working with my mother, Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade, at the University of Chicago, I saw that the science and guidelines were advancing quickly—but they weren’t reaching patients. Even in leading centers, many people who qualified for genetic testing were never identified.

We initially thought the problem was identification. What we learned quickly is that identification alone doesn’t change outcomes—follow-through does.

That insight shaped CancerIQ. It’s not just about finding risk, it’s about making sure the right next step actually happens.

FA: The first real proof point came when health systems started using CancerIQ at scale. They found far more patients qualified for genetic testing than expected, and more importantly, those patients were actually getting tested.

That’s when we knew it could scale and go beyond genetics and hereditary cancer to include emerging innovations across all cancer types—colorectal, lung, breast, and beyond—which today include things like advanced imaging, blood-based screening, multi-cancer early detection (MCED), and recurrence monitoring like MRD. That's also created natural partnerships with the diagnostic companies and labs bringing these innovations to market.

FA: Every health system asked the same question: how do we make sure the right patients actually complete the recommended screening or diagnostic?

What we learned is that the answer isn't found inside the workflow alone. It starts with the patient. Patients don't complete tests they don't understand. So the focus became engaging and educating them directly—so they understand what they need, why it matters, and what to do next. Average risk, high risk, in treatment, in survivorship.

When patients understand what they need and actually follow through, it creates measurable value. The right screening and diagnostics get completed earlier, and that care stays within the system.

That drives near-term revenue, builds patient loyalty, and supports long-term growth for cancer programs. So the conversation has shifted—this isn’t just a quality initiative. It’s a growth strategy.

One of the biggest lessons is that you’re rarely selling to one person. You have to build alignment across clinicians, operations, IT, and finance—each with different priorities.

What’s been most effective is focusing on outcomes rather than features.

When you show that patients are actually completing the screening and diagnostics they need—and that programs can grow without adding burden to clinical teams—that resonates across every stakeholder.

FA: Strategic investors bring perspective on how the healthcare ecosystem actually works.

We sit at the intersection of patients, providers, and the rapidly evolving world of cancer diagnostics. Having investors who understand those dynamics helps us navigate how these pieces come together in the real world.

It’s also why we’ve always led with data—demonstrating clinical impact, patient engagement, and the downstream value we’re creating.

FA: One thing that stands out is how many people come to CancerIQ with a personal connection to the mission.

Many of our team members have experienced cancer directly or within their families. That creates a deep understanding of how important it is not just to identify risk, but to make sure patients act on that risk and don’t fall through the cracks.

We do need a mix of clinical, product, and operational expertise, but what really sets the team apart is that shared commitment to improving how patients experience cancer care in the real world.

FA: Chicago has been an ideal place to build this company.

We’re surrounded by leading academic medical centers, as well as a strong ecosystem across providers, diagnostics, and life sciences. That proximity has helped us stay close to both the clinical front lines and the pace of innovation happening across cancer care.

Because our work touches patients, providers, and diagnostics, being in the middle of that ecosystem has been incredibly valuable.

FA: I think many people still think about cancer primarily through age-based screening frameworks.

But what we’re seeing is that risk is much more dynamic. Genetics, family history, lifestyle, and emerging biological signals all play a role, and new diagnostics are evolving quickly to reflect that.

The challenge is that innovation is moving faster than patients can keep up—across everything from early detection to recurrence monitoring.

We’ve already seen that when you engage patients directly and guide them through care, you can dramatically increase completion in genetic testing. Now we’re applying that same approach across the broader landscape of cancer diagnostics.

The future of cancer prevention will be more proactive and personalized—but only if patients actually move through the care available to them.

OCD is one of the most misunderstood conditions in behavioral health. Most people picture someone who likes things neat. The clinical reality is much darker: intrusive thoughts that attack your core identity, compulsions that feel like the only way out, and a healthcare system that mostly misses it.

That's the world Stephen Smith walked into in college. Misdiagnosed, mistreated, cycled through care designed for something else entirely. So he built NOCD, and it became the largest OCD treatment practice in the world.

NOCD is a full-stack clinical operation: clinician hiring and training, billing and revenue cycle, outcomes research, and deep insurance relationships. The infrastructure required to actually get someone better, not just connect them to a provider.

And that infrastructure is now operating that same model under a platform called Noto, built to address severe behavioral health conditions beyond OCD.

Noto is hiring a Senior Software Engineer in Chicago to help build it. You'll work across the stack with product, design, and clinical teams on therapy experiences, clinician tools, and the infrastructure behind the largest OCD treatment network in the world.

👉🏽 Senior Software Engineer at Noto

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