3 ms·

>>Theranos claims that the usual delay of testing in centralized laboratories is approximately 3 days and that they will generate and deliver their data much fa

>>Theranos claims that the usual delay of testing in centralized laboratories is approximately 3 days and that they will generate and deliver their data much faster (e.g., within 4 h). The 3-day delay claim is not accurate. The bulk of laboratory testing in centralized laboratories is completed within an hour or two (calculated from time of sample collection to time of results posting for physician review). For example, in our laboratory, more than 90% of creatinine and troponin requests from all wards are completed in <1 h and more than 97% in <2 h. It is thus questionable that Theranos’s technology will be able to deliver faster results than the ones mentioned... Consequently, faster analysis will not have a major impact on patient outcomes. http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cclm.2015.53.issue-7/cclm-2015-0356/cclm-2015-0356.xml http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cclm.2015.53.issue-7/cclm-20... This is the same kind of bullshit I see in academia, where a new technology is promised to replace an old technology that works fine, but now they have a 9 billion dollar valuation!

rcurry 11y ago
The more I read about this company, Theranos, the more I get this feeling that one day I'll be reading an article in the WSJ or NYT titled "The Greatest Diagnostics Company That Never Was", or something along that line.
- seansmccullough 11y ago
  I completely agree. Their lack of disclosure about their technology is strange. It's been a "trade secret" for over a decade.
asgard1024 11y ago
> This is the same kind of bullshit I see in academia, where a new technology is promised to replace an old technology that works fine, but now they have a 9 billion dollar valuation! I am not sure it is bullshit, maybe it's just competition? Over time, companies within an industry become complacent, cut costs, and decrease quality of service. Somebody (a young idealist perhaps?) comes along and says, hey, we can do better! And because she believes in free markets, it must be that old technology (and indeed newer technology may have marginal benefit) is the culprit, not human greed or laziness or other deadly sin. So she goes, touts, implements and there is some success. However, then the giants will wake up to the threat. They will magically find the way to be more effective, as they always could have been, and they may even grudgingly implement some parts of new technology. And so the margin for the disruptor quickly disappears, and things will return back to the normal state of affairs, where companies can lazily collect fat paychecks for doing the necessary minimum. It's actually win-win for everybody, customers get a small technology/process upgrade, and she is now in the club! The only minor problem is that this economic model is far from being optimal, but no one really worries about that except academic economists, since no one really knows how to attain the optimal model in the human society anyway.
- frozenport 11y ago
  >>win-win for everybody Worst case is that their technology has a few percentage points better outcome, perhaps by selectively sampling candidates during clinical trials or combining it with an existing method, and everybody gets charged a ton more money.
- joezydeco 11y ago
  Theranos' area of interest, diagnostic microfluidics, is nothing exotic or new to the giants in the diagnostic industry. I spent a number of years with one major company in this field, and back in the 1990s they already had a decade of R&D, and countless millions of dollars, invested in this area. It was a difficult area of research back then and it continues to be. The idea that one scientist could come up with a concept to outsmart those companies is certainly possible and makes a very compelling investor story. But the reality is probably a little bit different.
spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
I would agree from an end user POV (I have to do a set of bloods every 6-8 weeks) the delay is getting test results from lab to specialist. Though in the UK the fractured nature of the NHS means I can't get my tests done at a hospital near work - I have to take a days leave. I wonder if There a market for mobile blood testers who come to your work place to take the sample.
robbiep 11y ago
I agree with your turnarounds (I mean, of course, if you don't turn around a trop in under an hour it's pretty much useless) not to mention things like the iStat machines which are used in tonnes of rural Australian hospitals for all range of blood tests, and ABG machines in every emergency department and Icu, all of which require tiny quantities of venous or even capillary blood to work
hanklazard 11y ago
Seems to me like this quote from the paper is not making a fair comparison. As far as I know, the main market that Theranos is targeting is outpatient / home testing. Yes, of course central labs in a hospital setting get simple and/or common tests back within a few hours--inpatient medicine involves a higher level of illness severity and thus a higher priority on lab values. I work with one of the major outpatient laboratory companies on a daily basis and I'll tell you that their basic results are almost always back within 24 hrs and stat labs are back within three hours of the runner picking them up. In fact, probably half of our wait time is from the pick-up schedule (late in the day) and had nothing to do with these "older" technologies taking too long. That being said, this particular lab company provides horrible customer service and our nurses probably spend more than an hour on the phone with them every week trying to troubleshoot very simple situations. For this reason, I've been hopeful about Theranos' potential to bring some meaningful competition to the market. We'll see.
erroneousfunk 11y ago
When I get blood tests done at my GP's office, they sit around until the next morning when the guy from the lab picks them up. Then they go to the lab, where they might wait in a queue until the next day. Then the tests are run, then they send the results electronically to my GP's office. It takes about three days from the time blood is drawn from me, until the time my GP makes a recommendation based on the test results, and a big part of that is because of the the remote lab testing.

rcurry 11y ago

The more I read about this company, Theranos, the more I get this feeling that one day I'll be reading an article in the WSJ or NYT titled "The Greatest Diagnostics Company That Never Was", or something along that line.

seansmccullough 11y ago
I completely agree. Their lack of disclosure about their technology is strange. It's been a "trade secret" for over a decade.

asgard1024 11y ago

> This is the same kind of bullshit I see in academia, where a new technology is promised to replace an old technology that works fine, but now they have a 9 billion dollar valuation! I am not sure it is bullshit, maybe it's just competition? Over time, companies within an industry become complacent, cut costs, and decrease quality of service. Somebody (a young idealist perhaps?) comes along and says, hey, we can do better! And because she believes in free markets, it must be that old technology (and indeed newer technology may have marginal benefit) is the culprit, not human greed or laziness or other deadly sin. So she goes, touts, implements and there is some success. However, then the giants will wake up to the threat. They will magically find the way to be more effective, as they always could have been, and they may even grudgingly implement some parts of new technology. And so the margin for the disruptor quickly disappears, and things will return back to the normal state of affairs, where companies can lazily collect fat paychecks for doing the necessary minimum. It's actually win-win for everybody, customers get a small technology/process upgrade, and she is now in the club! The only minor problem is that this economic model is far from being optimal, but no one really worries about that except academic economists, since no one really knows how to attain the optimal model in the human society anyway.

frozenport 11y ago
>>win-win for everybody Worst case is that their technology has a few percentage points better outcome, perhaps by selectively sampling candidates during clinical trials or combining it with an existing method, and everybody gets charged a ton more money.
joezydeco 11y ago
Theranos' area of interest, diagnostic microfluidics, is nothing exotic or new to the giants in the diagnostic industry. I spent a number of years with one major company in this field, and back in the 1990s they already had a decade of R&D, and countless millions of dollars, invested in this area. It was a difficult area of research back then and it continues to be. The idea that one scientist could come up with a concept to outsmart those companies is certainly possible and makes a very compelling investor story. But the reality is probably a little bit different.

spacecowboy_lon 11y ago

I would agree from an end user POV (I have to do a set of bloods every 6-8 weeks) the delay is getting test results from lab to specialist. Though in the UK the fractured nature of the NHS means I can't get my tests done at a hospital near work - I have to take a days leave. I wonder if There a market for mobile blood testers who come to your work place to take the sample.

robbiep 11y ago

I agree with your turnarounds (I mean, of course, if you don't turn around a trop in under an hour it's pretty much useless) not to mention things like the iStat machines which are used in tonnes of rural Australian hospitals for all range of blood tests, and ABG machines in every emergency department and Icu, all of which require tiny quantities of venous or even capillary blood to work

hanklazard 11y ago

Seems to me like this quote from the paper is not making a fair comparison. As far as I know, the main market that Theranos is targeting is outpatient / home testing. Yes, of course central labs in a hospital setting get simple and/or common tests back within a few hours--inpatient medicine involves a higher level of illness severity and thus a higher priority on lab values. I work with one of the major outpatient laboratory companies on a daily basis and I'll tell you that their basic results are almost always back within 24 hrs and stat labs are back within three hours of the runner picking them up. In fact, probably half of our wait time is from the pick-up schedule (late in the day) and had nothing to do with these "older" technologies taking too long. That being said, this particular lab company provides horrible customer service and our nurses probably spend more than an hour on the phone with them every week trying to troubleshoot very simple situations. For this reason, I've been hopeful about Theranos' potential to bring some meaningful competition to the market. We'll see.

erroneousfunk 11y ago

When I get blood tests done at my GP's office, they sit around until the next morning when the guy from the lab picks them up. Then they go to the lab, where they might wait in a queue until the next day. Then the tests are run, then they send the results electronically to my GP's office. It takes about three days from the time blood is drawn from me, until the time my GP makes a recommendation based on the test results, and a big part of that is because of the the remote lab testing.