10 ms·

Problems Found at Theranos Lab

82 points by jhonovich 11y ago

jhonovich 11y ago
"UCSF charges Theranos more than $300 for a comprehensive metabolic panel, said a person familiar with the matter. Theranos’s website shows that patients who get the same test at one of the company’s blood-draw sites pay just $7.19. A comparison of all the tests done by UCSF for Theranos shows that the company appears to be incurring losses on many of those tests." If correct, anyone have a legitimate rationale for Theranos doing this?
- Terr_ 11y ago
  I assume it's not because they want the samples, unless it's some kind of... CIA Fake vaccination-drive v2.
- nradov 11y ago
  In order to compete against LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics, Theranos needs to offer a full range of lab tests. If they are still scaling up then it might make sense to outsource some tests even if they lose money doing it in order to build market share and test out their processes. And then they can gradually start doing more and more of those tests in house in order to bring costs down. (But I have no idea what's going on in Theranos or if they have legitimate reasons.)
  - exit 11y ago
    how can they outsource it if their sampling process collects a much smaller volume than what other companies require?
    - imron 11y ago
      By taking a full sample for those tests.
- rhizome 11y ago
  Loss-leader?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- melling 11y ago
  According to Wikipedia the comprehensive metabolic panel is a series of 14 tests: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_metabolic_panel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_metabolic_pane... "The tests are performed on machines based on the AutoAnalyzer invented in 1957." Is there some reason that this should cost $300 58 years later? No Moore's Law in medicine?
  - CamperBob2 11y ago
    "The tests are performed on machines based on the AutoAnalyzer invented in 1957." That's like saying that modern PCs are based on the IBM 360 architecture from 1964. To the extent it's true, it's true in a way that makes sense only to a tech-illiterate journalist.
    - danso 11y ago
      That quote comes from the Wikipedia article, not the WSJ.
      - CamperBob2 11y ago
        That doesn't make it any more meaningful. It's a ridiculous thing to say in any context.
        danso 11y ago
        No argument there...just wanted to point out that the author of the submitted article didn't make such a claim, as that would cast some doubt about the assertions of the reporting.
        CamperBob2 11y ago
        True, for some reason I read his post as both linking to Wikipedia and quoting from the original article; my bad.
  - rgbrenner 11y ago
- lawnchair_larry 11y ago
  Basically, Theranos is the Jet.com of blood testing. Use VC money to order it from someone else for more than you're selling it for. This is what we call a bleeding unicorn.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
randycupertino 11y ago
I am just so amazed Theranos was able to raise so much $$ on basically a wink and a smile without and due diligence by the investors. Everyone was distracted by the blonde blue eyed Stanford dropout in the Steve Jobs outfit! And now Theranos is blowing through investors $$ outsourcing their tests to UCSF because their tech has failed. Hope WSJ keeps kicking the tires on this.
- pron 11y ago
  While I agree with the essence of your comment, there is no need (and no justification) to draw attention to Theranos's founder's looks. Investors are often swayed to invest unbelievable amounts of money in various convincing charmers (and Holmes is definitely impressive in that way) who sell them a dream -- see Shai Agassi at Better Place[1] and others. I see no reason to believe that Holmes's blonde hair and blue eyes played any role here, at least not any more than Agassi's square jaw. As I don't recall Agassi's jaw being mentioned as a contributing factor in the exorbitant investments he received, mentioning it in Holmes's case feels a little off. [1]: http://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place http://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-pla...
  - 55555 11y ago
    > there is no need (and no justification) to draw attention to Theranos's founder's looks. When there's a possibility that she dresses in a certain way in order to subconsciously convince people that she's a maverick visionary, or when she lacks that intent but it probably had that effect, I think it's justified (but not needed). And a defined masculine jaw would probably help you raise money, just like it helps you get dates. Random depressing link: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/05/new-study-finds-women-who-are-not-considered-attractive-receive-lower-grades https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/05/new-study-fin...
    - pron 11y ago
      > When there's a possibility that she dresses in a certain way Obviously I wasn't referring to the clause about her attire. > And a defined masculine jaw would probably help you raise money Absolutely, but that was not my point. The point is that if the matter of appearance is commonly brought up when a woman is involved but rarely when a man is, then there's a problem. If the matter of Agassi's jaw had been brought up as a likely reason for his ability to fool (or not) investors as often as Holmes's natural physical appearance comes up, I wouldn't have said a thing. I'm not objecting at all to the likely hypothesis (perhaps a well-supported theory by now) that physical appearance matters a lot in all sorts of circumstances, but to the tendency to bring up physical appearance as a significant cause for success only (or almost only) when discussing women, and when the actual amount information supporting this hypothesis in both cases (of men and women) is similarly nonexistent (and possibly similarly likely in both cases).
hkmurakami 11y ago
Friend recently told me that when Theranos first hit the news as a darling startup, his MIT Microfluidics PhD friends went to see what the novel science was about. Naturally they read her paper and ... They couldn't find anything new/special in the paper and were left scratching their heads. Maybe VC stronger connections with scientists, not just technologies when doing due diligence? By the way this is a non sequitur but I find it poetically ironic that Theranos HQ is located on Page Mill Road where WSJ's Silicon Valley branch used to be located back in the day.
- madaxe_again 11y ago
  I've been maintaining for a while that Theranos is a very cynical investment vehicle, and has little to do with medicine. The backgrounds of those connected, of her family, of the trajectory and direction of the company (everything has been very PR and financial press oriented) suggests that their key mission is to grow the value of the company, rather than do anything novel. The sad thing is, this seems to be an increasingly common strategy in a certain segment of the business world, and it brings value to nobody ultimately - it just separates optimistic investors who just see a wunderkind and incredible new technology from their money.
  - roye 11y ago
    Sounds like an accurate description of a ponzi scheme.
    - arethuza 11y ago
      I believe the phrase is "Fake it 'til you Make it" - whether this is a legitimate approach tends to only be obvious in retrospect.
      - random_moonwalk 11y ago
        It is troubling if this is the mantra of a manufacturer of medical equipment, however.
  - 11y ago
late2part 11y ago
Paraphrasing Ocar Wilde: "She's not that pretty."
- kelvin0 11y ago
  I guess having a karma of close to a thousand affords you this kind of unnecessary and superficial comments...
  - psykovsky 11y ago
    You give too much value to valueless imaginary internet points...
    - kelvin0 11y ago
      You mean my HN Karma points are not redeemable in gold bullion? SHocking :)
- dang 11y ago
  Please don't do this here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10966679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10966679 and marked it off-topic.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
rdlecler1 11y ago
Theranos operates under the explicit assumption blood Is homogeneous for a large number of markers and that any two nanotainer sized samples will be identical. If they are not, then in principle nanotainers can not work because the sample size is too small.
- drcode 11y ago
  > If they are not, then in principle nanotainers can not work because the sample size is too small. I am the last person who wants to defend Theranos, but theoretically if there are only a finite number of ways for tissue contaminants to enter a sample, these contaminants could be corrected for with statistical methods and accurate results could still be possible.
  - mbreese 11y ago
    You can't correct for inadequate sample sizes with statistics and still expect a clinically relevant result (the confidence interval would be too large). The issue isn't contamination in small samples, it's that the biomarkers they need to measure may not be accurately measurable at such small volumes - in particular with the value ranges required for the test. It may just be that their "nanotainer" tests may only be viable for boolean tests like their herpes test (herpes DNA present - yes / no).
  - cbsmith 11y ago
    Wait, what? How do you statistically compensate for a sample size of one, or zero? The issue here isn't contaminants in the sample, it's the markers (i.e., what is being tested for) in the sample. If marker isn't uniformly distributed, then these small samples might not even find it in them.
discardorama 11y ago
It looks like the WSJ has it in for Theranos. Is there some backstory behind it? Did Elizabeth do something to Murdock?
- jonknee 11y ago
  Considering all the other needlessly laudatory press about Theranos you could look at it the other way around and say that the WSJ is not in the tank for Theranos.
- freyr 11y ago
  It's shaping up to be the biggest, juiciest business story of the past year or so, bordering on scandal. It looks like the WSJ is doing its job.
- hvs 11y ago
  They are reporting things that federal inspectors found. How is that "having it in for Theranos"?
- ksherlock 11y ago
  It looks like the little boy has it in for the Emperor's New Clothes. Is there some backstory behind it? Did the Emperor do something to the little boy?
erikpukinskis 11y ago
I can't help but shake the feeling some of the bad vibes in this thread, and at Theranos in general, are people excited about seeing a woman CEO fail publicly because it protects the narrative that women are getting undeserved special privileges in today's society. I feel like similar stories of "fake it til you make it" are often valorized here. Of course I have no reason for believing that. Hopefully I'm wrong. But my spidey sense is tingling. Am I miscalibrated?
- lawnchair_larry 11y ago
  Yes. What you're seeing is how our community deals with charlatans. It has absolutely nothing to do with the CEO being a woman.
- cbsmith 11y ago
  Keep in mind, Theranos had a pretty good PR ride. I think you'd have a hard time making the case that anything that has been constant about the company is a cause of the negative sentiment. Far more likely is that their is a growing belief that they are not "fake it 'til you make it", but rather just "fake it", and a fear that if left unaddressed, this will harm the ecosystem as a whole.

82 points by jhonovich 11y ago

"UCSF charges Theranos more than $300 for a comprehensive metabolic panel, said a person familiar with the matter. Theranos’s website shows that patients who get the same test at one of the company’s blood-draw sites pay just $7.19. A comparison of all the tests done by UCSF for Theranos shows that the company appears to be incurring losses on many of those tests." If correct, anyone have a legitimate rationale for Theranos doing this?

Terr_ 11y ago
I assume it's not because they want the samples, unless it's some kind of... CIA Fake vaccination-drive v2.
nradov 11y ago
In order to compete against LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics, Theranos needs to offer a full range of lab tests. If they are still scaling up then it might make sense to outsource some tests even if they lose money doing it in order to build market share and test out their processes. And then they can gradually start doing more and more of those tests in house in order to bring costs down. (But I have no idea what's going on in Theranos or if they have legitimate reasons.)
- exit 11y ago
  how can they outsource it if their sampling process collects a much smaller volume than what other companies require?
  - imron 11y ago
    By taking a full sample for those tests.
rhizome 11y ago
Loss-leader?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
melling 11y ago
According to Wikipedia the comprehensive metabolic panel is a series of 14 tests: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_metabolic_panel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_metabolic_pane... "The tests are performed on machines based on the AutoAnalyzer invented in 1957." Is there some reason that this should cost $300 58 years later? No Moore's Law in medicine?
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  "The tests are performed on machines based on the AutoAnalyzer invented in 1957." That's like saying that modern PCs are based on the IBM 360 architecture from 1964. To the extent it's true, it's true in a way that makes sense only to a tech-illiterate journalist.
  - danso 11y ago
    That quote comes from the Wikipedia article, not the WSJ.
    - CamperBob2 11y ago
      That doesn't make it any more meaningful. It's a ridiculous thing to say in any context.
      - danso 11y ago
        No argument there...just wanted to point out that the author of the submitted article didn't make such a claim, as that would cast some doubt about the assertions of the reporting.
        CamperBob2 11y ago
        True, for some reason I read his post as both linking to Wikipedia and quoting from the original article; my bad.
- rgbrenner 11y ago
lawnchair_larry 11y ago
Basically, Theranos is the Jet.com of blood testing. Use VC money to order it from someone else for more than you're selling it for. This is what we call a bleeding unicorn.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

randycupertino 11y ago

I am just so amazed Theranos was able to raise so much $$ on basically a wink and a smile without and due diligence by the investors. Everyone was distracted by the blonde blue eyed Stanford dropout in the Steve Jobs outfit! And now Theranos is blowing through investors $$ outsourcing their tests to UCSF because their tech has failed. Hope WSJ keeps kicking the tires on this.

pron 11y ago
While I agree with the essence of your comment, there is no need (and no justification) to draw attention to Theranos's founder's looks. Investors are often swayed to invest unbelievable amounts of money in various convincing charmers (and Holmes is definitely impressive in that way) who sell them a dream -- see Shai Agassi at Better Place[1] and others. I see no reason to believe that Holmes's blonde hair and blue eyes played any role here, at least not any more than Agassi's square jaw. As I don't recall Agassi's jaw being mentioned as a contributing factor in the exorbitant investments he received, mentioning it in Holmes's case feels a little off. [1]: http://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place http://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-pla...
- 55555 11y ago
  > there is no need (and no justification) to draw attention to Theranos's founder's looks. When there's a possibility that she dresses in a certain way in order to subconsciously convince people that she's a maverick visionary, or when she lacks that intent but it probably had that effect, I think it's justified (but not needed). And a defined masculine jaw would probably help you raise money, just like it helps you get dates. Random depressing link: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/05/new-study-finds-women-who-are-not-considered-attractive-receive-lower-grades https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/05/new-study-fin...
  - pron 11y ago
    > When there's a possibility that she dresses in a certain way Obviously I wasn't referring to the clause about her attire. > And a defined masculine jaw would probably help you raise money Absolutely, but that was not my point. The point is that if the matter of appearance is commonly brought up when a woman is involved but rarely when a man is, then there's a problem. If the matter of Agassi's jaw had been brought up as a likely reason for his ability to fool (or not) investors as often as Holmes's natural physical appearance comes up, I wouldn't have said a thing. I'm not objecting at all to the likely hypothesis (perhaps a well-supported theory by now) that physical appearance matters a lot in all sorts of circumstances, but to the tendency to bring up physical appearance as a significant cause for success only (or almost only) when discussing women, and when the actual amount information supporting this hypothesis in both cases (of men and women) is similarly nonexistent (and possibly similarly likely in both cases).

hkmurakami 11y ago

Friend recently told me that when Theranos first hit the news as a darling startup, his MIT Microfluidics PhD friends went to see what the novel science was about. Naturally they read her paper and ... They couldn't find anything new/special in the paper and were left scratching their heads. Maybe VC stronger connections with scientists, not just technologies when doing due diligence? By the way this is a non sequitur but I find it poetically ironic that Theranos HQ is located on Page Mill Road where WSJ's Silicon Valley branch used to be located back in the day.

madaxe_again 11y ago
I've been maintaining for a while that Theranos is a very cynical investment vehicle, and has little to do with medicine. The backgrounds of those connected, of her family, of the trajectory and direction of the company (everything has been very PR and financial press oriented) suggests that their key mission is to grow the value of the company, rather than do anything novel. The sad thing is, this seems to be an increasingly common strategy in a certain segment of the business world, and it brings value to nobody ultimately - it just separates optimistic investors who just see a wunderkind and incredible new technology from their money.
- roye 11y ago
  Sounds like an accurate description of a ponzi scheme.
  - arethuza 11y ago
    I believe the phrase is "Fake it 'til you Make it" - whether this is a legitimate approach tends to only be obvious in retrospect.
    - random_moonwalk 11y ago
      It is troubling if this is the mantra of a manufacturer of medical equipment, however.
- 11y ago

late2part 11y ago

Paraphrasing Ocar Wilde: "She's not that pretty."

kelvin0 11y ago
I guess having a karma of close to a thousand affords you this kind of unnecessary and superficial comments...
- psykovsky 11y ago
  You give too much value to valueless imaginary internet points...
  - kelvin0 11y ago
    You mean my HN Karma points are not redeemable in gold bullion? SHocking :)
dang 11y ago
Please don't do this here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10966679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10966679 and marked it off-topic.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

rdlecler1 11y ago

Theranos operates under the explicit assumption blood Is homogeneous for a large number of markers and that any two nanotainer sized samples will be identical. If they are not, then in principle nanotainers can not work because the sample size is too small.

drcode 11y ago
> If they are not, then in principle nanotainers can not work because the sample size is too small. I am the last person who wants to defend Theranos, but theoretically if there are only a finite number of ways for tissue contaminants to enter a sample, these contaminants could be corrected for with statistical methods and accurate results could still be possible.
- mbreese 11y ago
  You can't correct for inadequate sample sizes with statistics and still expect a clinically relevant result (the confidence interval would be too large). The issue isn't contamination in small samples, it's that the biomarkers they need to measure may not be accurately measurable at such small volumes - in particular with the value ranges required for the test. It may just be that their "nanotainer" tests may only be viable for boolean tests like their herpes test (herpes DNA present - yes / no).
- cbsmith 11y ago
  Wait, what? How do you statistically compensate for a sample size of one, or zero? The issue here isn't contaminants in the sample, it's the markers (i.e., what is being tested for) in the sample. If marker isn't uniformly distributed, then these small samples might not even find it in them.

discardorama 11y ago

It looks like the WSJ has it in for Theranos. Is there some backstory behind it? Did Elizabeth do something to Murdock?

jonknee 11y ago
Considering all the other needlessly laudatory press about Theranos you could look at it the other way around and say that the WSJ is not in the tank for Theranos.
freyr 11y ago
It's shaping up to be the biggest, juiciest business story of the past year or so, bordering on scandal. It looks like the WSJ is doing its job.
hvs 11y ago
They are reporting things that federal inspectors found. How is that "having it in for Theranos"?
ksherlock 11y ago
It looks like the little boy has it in for the Emperor's New Clothes. Is there some backstory behind it? Did the Emperor do something to the little boy?

erikpukinskis 11y ago

I can't help but shake the feeling some of the bad vibes in this thread, and at Theranos in general, are people excited about seeing a woman CEO fail publicly because it protects the narrative that women are getting undeserved special privileges in today's society. I feel like similar stories of "fake it til you make it" are often valorized here. Of course I have no reason for believing that. Hopefully I'm wrong. But my spidey sense is tingling. Am I miscalibrated?

lawnchair_larry 11y ago
Yes. What you're seeing is how our community deals with charlatans. It has absolutely nothing to do with the CEO being a woman.
cbsmith 11y ago
Keep in mind, Theranos had a pretty good PR ride. I think you'd have a hard time making the case that anything that has been constant about the company is a cause of the negative sentiment. Far more likely is that their is a growing belief that they are not "fake it 'til you make it", but rather just "fake it", and a fear that if left unaddressed, this will harm the ecosystem as a whole.