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Is it just me or does this medscape article seem a bit slanted? Or at the very least, weak?
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/852839
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/852839
Wonder what Cleveland Clinic has uncovered since they partnered with Theranos?
To reciprocate for having an unpaid person inspect your lab.What's the benefit in performing unpaid CAP inspections?
This quote from Holmes should make it completely obvious that she is full of ****. She can't even explain a process she apparently created actually works. Here is the quote: "A chemistry is performed so that a chemical reaction occurs and generates a signal from the chemical interaction with the sample, which is translated into a result, which is then reviewed by certified laboratory personnel." She added that, thanks to "miniaturization and automation, we are able to handle these tiny samples."
I continue to be mesmerized at their seeming lack of knowledge about anything related to the current practice of running a lab or performing tests. I suspect that they have hired people with knowledge, but either these people are being marginalized or ignored, or being paid to agree with whatever the bosses say. Seemingly nothing they say is really trustworthy. They say they aren't running any tests using their fingerstick technology until they get clearance but they clearly were, and they were not calling it a research study or anything.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/at-theranos-many-strategies-and-snags-1451259629
Yikes. The obfuscation, willful ignorance and sense of entitlement is palpable.
A chemistry is performed so that a chemical reaction occurs and generates a signal from the chemical interaction with the sample, which is translated into a result, which is then reviewed by certified laboratory personnel
Now the sexism card is being played....
http://fortune.com/2015/12/10/elizabeth-holmes-sexism-theranos/
I am starting to wonder what their endgame is. It seems they want to establish a line of consumer directed test ordering which is efficient, cheap, and easy to find. That may be possible if they can make their technology actually work and work cheaply (including quality controls and proficiency testing and such), or if they manage to convince people that their testing is reliable. I had thought their endgame was to create a new methodology which would be cheaper and faster and more portable, but I'm not sure about that now. There are probably dozens of other companies working on testing that will be faster and more portable. Maybe not cheaper, but that's all relative anyway. Theranos can only undercut the price for so long before they run out of reserves and loans and have to actually start charging enough to make a profit. So if they want to sell their machines to others they obviously have to do a lot of work.
The whole issue of Laboratory Developed Test and the loopholes is an interesting side story. They are claiming that, despite the fact that they are manufacturing hundreds or thousands of analyzers and using them all over the country that their tests are the same thing as other "lab developed tests" which are typically modifications of existing assays like JAK-2 assays or FISH tests or whatever. I really can't see that holding water. That's like if Siemens or Beckmann decided to open up their own labs and say they no longer needed FDA approval because they were lab developed. Would anyone stand for that really? Ultimately though since they are testing for things that are commonly tested for elsewhere, they need to demonstrate that their results are rock solid equivalent of other existing assays. This isn't a new test, these are sodium, platelet counts, bilirubin, all things with known clinical impact and reference ranges. "Simple" tests which have to have reproducible and trusted results. You can't just say "trust us, our results are great" and get away with that.
And I see that they are still blaming criticisms on lab corp and the competition trying to bring them down. I don't understand their public relations at all. They act more like politicians or investment banks, dodging and weaving, being cryptic and hiding data, and blaming haters instead of answering actual questions. They seem to fail to realize that everyone hates politicians and investment banks and no one really trusts them. For certain industries that might be an ok strategy. For health care data that's not ok for most people.
Well I find it hard to believe they don't have any endgame. Can their plan really be to have this woman parade around to media outlets for fawning portrayals, then wait for $ to roll in? I don't think that many people would invest in BS. I suspect initial studies were promising and they had all kinds of projections showing what could happen with increasing business and such.
I mean, I can understand why older politicians and military types would be on the board. Easy paycheck. But who were/are all the investors? There can't have been that many people with significant lab experience investing $. Maybe that's part of the reason they are so pissed at Labcorp, maybe they offered labcorp part of the company.
I actually *don't* understand why the political and military bigwigs would be on board. That is the biggest red flag that there's something else going on that the rest of us aren't privy to. Is Holmes' family connected or something? Is the real founder of the concept (whoever that might be, because I suspect Holmes is a hired talking head) connected?
I can't wait till the whole thing implodes so we can learn the truth while we toast marshmallows over the flaming embers of what remains.
Holmes' family is connected and her first money was provided by a former neighbor and family friend from a very big name tech VC firm.
One article I read said the reason there are so many military and political people on the board is because the company wanted to get exclusive rights to all military and VA testing. It's much easier to do when you have such big names on your board. Their goal was to require all testing to go through Theranos.
I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember the dot com boom of the late 90s, but there was a company called WebVan. They were an online grocery deliver service that went from being worth 100s of millions to zilch in a few short years. The people running their company famously didn't have a single person who had ever worked in the hyper competitive grocery industry.
Theranos reminds me of that a little. The statements she makes sound like she doesn't know all that much about medicine or the clinical lab. The things she says sound like they are meant to appeal to people that don't know anything about lab testing.
She has her stuff patented. Now put it out there and let the medical world verify its legitimacy. If it is verified, Quest or LabCorp will buy her company out for many many billions.
The part about wanting exclusive rights to military testing is not surprising. It must have taken serious cash to get all those bigwigs on the board on the front end.
One article I read said the reason there are so many military and political people on the board is because the company wanted to get exclusive rights to all military and VA testing. It's much easier to do when you have such big names on your board. Their goal was to require all testing to go through Theranos.