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Henry McCance ’64 funds research to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s

May 13, 2021

Written by Henry McCance as a profile update for his 55th reunion at Harvard Business School

In 2010 I retired from a wonderful career at Greylock partners. I joined Greylock in 1969 and became Chairman and Managing Partner. I was lucky to get into venture capital when it was an unrecognized cottage industry. Over the next 40 years venture capital became an important asset class, and Greylock grew to be a leading firm with over $3 billion under management. Among the technology companies we have been privileged to support are Facebook, Linked-In, Red Hat Software, Workday, Palo Alto Networks, AirBnB, and ServiceNow.

For the last 10 years I have ramped up my philanthropic efforts. In 2000 my wife Allison was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Today she still lives with me and some wonderful caregivers, but she is severely compromised, in a wheelchair and non-verbal. In 2004, I joined two other families and co-founded a new non-profit, Cure Alzheimer’s Fund. Using a venture-capital model, we deployed a new approach to funding Alzheimer’s Disease research that included several founding principles still in place today:

  • Mission: Fund research with the highest probability of preventing, slowing, or reversing Alzheimer’s Disease.

  • Researchers: Proactively identify and provide grants to the leading researchers in the world. Dr. Rudy Tanzi (Harvard Medical School) has been the Chair of the Research Leadership Group from the beginning.

  • Rapid approval: Minimize bureaucracy with a rolling approval process and rapid turnaround (ie. months) for approval.

  • Collaboration: Require that funded scientists collaborate and discuss research projects with each other to accelerate progress and discover new opportunities for effective therapies.

  • 100% of Donations to Research: 100% of all donations go directly to research with the Board of Directors paying all overhead costs.

Since inception, Cure Alzheimer’s Fund has distributed $125 million to 530 projects in labs around the world. More than 750 papers have been published in peer-reviewed journals and this body of work has been cited 47,000 times. The collective research has changed the fundamental understanding of the disease, of underlying genetics, of contributing factors to the pathology, of lifestyle influences, and of potential pathways for therapeutics.

I am very gratified that Cure Alzheimer’s Fund has received the highest rating of four stars for nine consecutive years by Charity Navigator, which also selected CureAlz as one of the ten Best Medical Research Organizations in the country.

In 2018, I helped establish the McCance Center for Brain Health (MCBH) at Mass General Hospital to complement my work on Alzheimer’s Disease. This virtual center focuses on maintaining healthy brains before a neuroscience disease sets in. Specifically, the MCBH mission is to study and identify indicators of brain health, to discover and develop the interventions that prevent brain disease, and to convene a community of knowledge and tools essential to integrate these indicators and interventions into primary care. While still in its early days, we have recruited an outstanding leadership group, formed a strong advisory board, and commenced important research projects and clinical care to promote brain health.

Finally, together with my two daughters, son-in-law, and a Harvard Business School professor as trustees, I run the McCance Foundation. The main areas we support with grants are:

  • Climate change
  • Alleviating poverty for the most disadvantaged children in the US, mainly through the lever of education reform
  • Medical research on diseases that have affected my family, other than Alzheimer’s Disease.

I have found this foundation has helped bond my extended family over three generations.

“All work and no play” is not my formula for retirement. I have always loved sports, although my golf game shows that I am not an athlete. In 2010, I was fortunate to become a partner in Fenway Sports Group (FSG). FSG owns the Boston Red Sox and the Liverpool Football Club. I am indeed blessed to be a part of two World Series wins by the Red Sox, and a Premier League Title and World Soccer Championship by Liverpool. Adding to my good luck, in 2018 I became a partner in Starlight Racing. Starlight Racing owned part of the 2018 Kentucky Derby and Triple Crown winner, Justify, and part of the 2020 Kentucky Derby and Horse of the Year winner, Authentic. What a run!

More important than any of the above, I have been blessed with two wonderful daughters, Elizabeth McCance, Yale ’89, and Ellen McCance Pinschmidt, Duke ’98, and six healthy and happy grandchildren.