11 ms·
Theranos Voids Two Years of Edison Blood-Test Results
- taneem 10y agoThis is likely the beginning of the end. With such a massive loss of trust, especially in the healthcare space, it is hard to see how the company could ever recover in the eyes of customers, investors or employees.
- seehafer 10y agoHolmes will have to go and be replaced by a perceived 'grown-up' CEO. That's the only way (and even that is a longshot) the company ever recovers.
- kilroy123 10y agoI agree. However, it sounds like they don't really have a real product or anything to sell. I think the company imploding is more likely.
- thonos 10y agoWill Holmes have to face any consequences for her company providing false results and making false promises or can she just walk away with a bag of money?
- pjys 10y agoShe has certainly already been able to divert to herself a good chunk of her investors' money. And it's unlikely that she will ever have to face personal consequences for her decisions. Maybe she will run for president in a few years. She certainly has what it takes for a successful political career.
- dekhn 10y agoI'm a lot more skeptical than you. She could face fines, even worse PR than now, and jail time. I don't think she'd be successful running for office after her funded company tanked because it misled everybody about their ostensibly revolutionary technology for a decade.
- SEJeff 10y agoTrump University anybody?
- hackaflocka 10y agoTrump Holmes has a nice ring to it.
- joering2 10y agoMy personally favorite one is Trump And The Empty Jewelry Box Scam
- elsewhen 10y agohow would she have done this? most ceos just get a salary and equity; if the equity goes to zero, which is increasingly looking likely, then all she got was a salary for all the years that she ran the company. i dont think that qualifies as diverting a "good chunk of her investors' money."
- maxerickson 10y agoShe may have sold some of her equity in the company.
- simonw 10y agoIt's called "taking money off the table", and it's actually pretty common in later funding rounds. The founders sell some of their personal stock to investors for an often significant amount of money (multiple millions of dollars). Investors agree to this for a few reasons. Firstly, it's a way for them to get a larger stake in the company. Secondly, it reduces the risk of the founders taking an early exit because they are strapped for cash. Finally, in a competitive deal (against other investors) it can be a way to sweeten the deal and get selected over the competition. Investors don't want founders to be worrying about money - they want them to be focusing on their company.
- Russell91 10y agoShe has voting control, which is why she is still there. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2015/11/03/theranos-letter-shows-elizabeth-holmes-tried-to-take-control-from-shareholders/#a8a450d479e4 http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2015/11/03/theranos-l...
- Aleman360 10y agoThey can just change their name.
- a_small_island 10y ago>That means some patients received erroneous results that might have thrown off health decisions made with their doctors. Put them in jail.
- wl 10y agoI don't think all the money they've raised so far is sufficient to settle all the claims that will be made against them. The company will not ever be worth enough to settle those claims. In a just world, their assets would already be frozen.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago> In a just world, their assets would already be frozen. Who would one contact in the federal government to ensure the right folks were looking into this?
- maxerickson 10y agoShouldn't CMS be doing that? The article mentions CMS threatening to revoke their license, it seems like they would be inviting in a law enforcement investigation if they felt it was warranted.
- MaxfordAndSons 10y agoUnfortunately, it seems unlikely there's a public and open tip-line for general corporate malfeasance (that anyone's paying attention to anyhow). Fortunately, I think the feds are already on the case.
- interurban 10y agoThere are links on the SEC's and FTC's homepages for filing complaints, reporting antitrust violations, submitting tips, and reporting identity theft. There are probably more but I only spent about 30 seconds looking.
- rhino369 10y ago
- throwaway_xx9 10y agoCan't wait for the perp walk!
- dvcrn 10y agoUsing "https://www.google.com/" https://www.google.com/" as Referer (with the 'Referer Control' extension for example) gets around the paywall
- kilroy123 10y agoI just use this browser extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bypass/ekfnpmbmfmlnbphalelfmiodjmbbjlmp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bypass/ekfnpmbmfml...
- grrowl 10y agoYou can also insert a "?" at the start of the URL which will search Google for that URL, the article itself is the first result.
- Steko 10y agoWeb link at the top of this comment page does the job.
- simula67 10y agoAny idea how to do this in mobile ?
- dvcrn 10y agoJust search for the title / url in google and click on it to get use google as referer
- DanBC 10y agoHN has [web] links under the title. Click that, and it launches a Google search for the title. Click the result. (It'd be nice if we could set, in our options, alternative like DuckDuckGo or Bing)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jbuzbee 10y agoThe class-action lawyers must be salivating over "tens of thousands of corrected blood-test reports"
- mikeryan 10y agoYes and no. While there is likely a claim if the company is now unviable there may not be any money to claim. Blood from a stone and all that.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago> Blood from a stone and all that You just need one drop tho.
- bravo22 10y agoI imagine there is enough negligence here to target the officers and directors directly in a lawsuit.
- aresant 10y ago"One family practitioner in a suburb of Phoenix said a Theranos representative dropped off a stack of 20 corrected test reports a few weeks ago. Many of the voided results were for calcium, estrogen and testosterone tests. The doctor said one corrected report is for a patient she sent to the emergency room after receiving abnormally elevated test results from Theranos in late 2014." Tort attorneys should be licking their lips. It would be shocking if Theranos survives this. Beyond that Walgreens - the largest retail pharmacy chain in the USA and Theranos' wellness center partner - should also be in the crosshairs. Feels like they should have had some better safeguards for consumers before committing to the 40-store pilot in AZ.
- dekhn 10y agoAn aside: doctors shouldn't be discussing people's test results, even if they anonymize and/or aggregate the patient data, without previously receiving consent, and even then I don't think it's really wise to provide quotes like this to reporters.
- pvnick 10y agoActually, sufficiently aggregated health data is generally fine to release publicly since it can not be tied to an individual. Anonymized data you must be very careful with, since individual data elements can frequently be combined to re-identify someone.
- sopooneo 10y agoIn support of your point about "sufficently aggregated" data, I occasionally work on projects that publish aggregate health statistics, and you have to be very careful about the size of your denominators. For instance, even without telling what numbers you are dividing, you probably couldn't publish the percentage of HIV positive results among pacific islanders in Nebraska. Because there might be only six such people.
- pvnick 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rcarrigan87 10y agoCan someone put this into perspective...how often are there major recalls or calibration issues at other, more established labs and testing companies? Certainly, not trying to defend Theranos, just trying to understand how bad this really is. Because it sounds pretty horrible...
- tacos 10y agoThis is an Epic Fuck Up that will be discussed for decades in legal, technology, VC, and startup circles. It makes it effectively impossible for a non-established player to innovate in the space for at least 5 years. Additional regulations will hinder innovation for far longer. People will go to jail.
- seehafer 10y agoIronically Holmes might end up getting her wish about all Lab Developed Tests (LDTs) needing to go through FDA approval in addition to CLIA certification, which cover the operation of a lab, not the design and validation of the machines in the lab.
- kosmic_k 10y agoI am not familiar with the actual laws involved in this kind of case. If it were proven that a Theranos tests harmed a patient and that Theranos willingly obscured the accuracy data to regulars could Holmes be held criminally liable?
- tacos 10y agoThat would likely fall under a civil statute. But criminal fraud seems likely. I'd be willing to take a bet on even more trivial matters like falsification of evidence once things started to go south ("it's the coverup, not the crime"). Investigated properly this will probably blow up the FDA too.
- eitally 10y agoThis series of events will create a business case for the ages, one that MBA students will read right after they study the J&J Tylenol crisis of 1982 (http://www.ou.edu/deptcomm/dodjcc/groups/02C2/Johnson%20&%20Johnson.htm http://www.ou.edu/deptcomm/dodjcc/groups/02C2/Johnson%20&%20...)
- vonklaus 10y agoI still believe in the idea of Theranos and while I think it is great the Ev Williams was able to secure funding 2 more times to keep rebuilding different versions of blogger[0], I want to live in a world where we also take huge gambles on hard problems. If we adhere to VC math (we should as this hypothetical is for VC investing) one of these payouts will be well worth it, e.g. Tesla/SpaceX. So yeah, I'd write down uBeam & Theranos, but you can fuck off if you want the world to stop investing in big ideas. [0]twitter.com, medium.com edit: Also, we can assume it isn't physically impossible to use smaller amounts of blood to perform tests. So yeah, it was super obvious from the beginning some immigrant who happened to be in the right place at the right time and make some money at the height of the DOTCOM era working in software couldn't build a sustainable rocket program that rivals that of 1st world nations. So it wasn't obvious, and the next big innovation won't be obvious, and if you think it is you are either building it or just straight up wrong.
- rcarrigan87 10y agoThey could have just failed. Never produced a technology. Wasted a bunch of money and all would be fine. But messing up medical tests while you are "figuring it out" is unacceptable.
- vonklaus 10y agoThat is fair. It stings the most because the medical industry is known for it's transparency and rigorous testig standards. The FDA, famous champion of public health, was able to successfully stop 23&me (information terrorists) from providing harmful information to their patients as well. It makes sense tha Theranos should be singled out and villified for the failure of one of their beta devices that was i active development. Obviously, lieing about it wasn't super cool, but again their product "figures out and produces medical tests" so messing up your product(or procedures involving it) is === messing up medical testing.
- Daneel_ 10y agoI would have said the opposite - that the healthcare industry is known for its lack of transparency, with big pharma being notorious for their obfuscation.
- apo 10y agoThis is what happens when you try a Minimum Viable Product in healthcare and aren't up-front about slower than expected R&D progress.
- joshmn 10y agoIt also doesn't look good when you fail this hard without a credited scientist on your board. And the one who was took his life, and reportedly told his wife "nothing's working."
- MaxfordAndSons 10y agoI don't believe he was on the board of directors if that's what you mean. edit: incorrect statement about C-level positions.
- dragonwriter 10y agoChief Scientist or, somewhat more commonly, Chief Science Officer is a typical C-level position in biotech -- and possibly other non-software tech -- firms (roughly equivalent to a CTO in software firm.)
- smaili 10y agoCouldn't agree more. One has to wonder the limits of the move fast, break things philosophy.
- 10y ago
- josh_carterPDX 10y agoThis is not what disruption looks like. This is what happens when you have someone with no domain expertise, but a great idea. We're seeing the same thing happening with Zenefits. Founders with no domain experience need to look at how they're going to enter a market full of incumbents. These incumbent businesses have survived for years because they know how to play the game. They have people in their employ that know how to lobby the right regulatory bodies. Theranos had none of this. So when all of this started coming down, they should have hired the most well-known and respected person in their field to bridge the gap between the past and future. Without that, they are outsiders playing in a game that has been around forever. They were set up for failure before they even began and no one was smart enough to ask "How will they disrupt an industry that has been around for decades?" Just saying, "We're going to make medical tests cheaper and more accessible" was clearly not the right answer.
- MaxfordAndSons 10y ago> They have people in their employ that know how to lobby the right regulatory bodies. Theranos had none of this. No, I think they had plenty of that, look at the makeup of their board. Maybe not exactly from lab testing background, but plenty members with heaps of biotech, pharma, legal and government experience. What they were lacking was a workable product to lobby for. Which I guess is a silver lining to this - that even a $9 billion lobbying effort can't overcome straightup fraud, at least in the biotech sphere. Finance, on the other hand...
- pbreit 10y agoDisagree. Elon Musk had no domain experience in payments, cars and rockets. Fresh eyes can be invaluable. And it's not that hard to avoid "pulling a Theranos". Theranos should not be an excuse to discount lack of domain experience.
- josh_carterPDX 10y agoLightening doesn't often strike twice. One success out of many doesn't mean people shouldn't do their homework. Entering the car market is not the same as entering the world of medicine where the results from a test Theranos conducts could result in endangering a life. Elon Musk surrounded himself with domain experts. Case in point, http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/13/11674590/tesla-vehicle-production-executive-peter-hochholdinger http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/13/11674590/tesla-vehicle-pro...
- _Codemonkeyism 10y agoInteresting they couldn't even user other peoples machines "A person familiar with the matter said the Arizona lab performed the blood-coagulation tests with a traditional machine from Siemens AG that was programmed to the wrong settings by Theranos. The Arizona lab also failed several tests to gauge the purity of the water it uses in its Siemens machines, which could affect the accuracy of some blood tests run on the devices, the person said."
- texthompson 10y agoI think this is consistent with an institutional interest in going through the motions of diagnostic tests, but not caring about accuracy.
- radnam 10y agoI was extremely optimistic for Theranos and having to see them go through this is sad on so many levels. Not calibrating standard testing machinery correctly just does not cut it. One of their notable contributions is to set precedence in Arizona where consumers can now order their own tests without doctor's orders. I believe consumer awareness of state-of-art diagnostic resting and making testing readily accessible can have a fundamental impact on people's wellness. ps: I am not advocating more testing.
- lquist 10y agoI'm based in SV, and I see a lot of big name entrepreneurs rallying behind her and I don't understand it. You cannot be cavalier/lean about human life. These people deserve to be jailed.
- hkmurakami 10y agoTheranos failing would have contagion effects for investor sentiment and the outcomes of other startups completely unrelated to Theranos.
- cft 10y agoSV is undergoing it's biggest transformation ever. The establishment is being formed, instead of tinkering in garages in sweatpants. This new corporate formulaic way of "staring up" protects their own elk, since the value created is often no longer in the product, but is rather based on connections, like in the East Coast old boys clubs.
- InclinedPlane 10y agoYup. And it's sickening to see people tout this model as some kind of "meritocracy". No, it's a system of privilege and connection, just like many others. Gotta live in the bay area to start, that alone is a challenge unless you're already wealthy. Gotta know who to talk to and how to talk to get money. Gotta have a degree. Gotta have friends who can be your co-founders/early employees or connections. Gotta know how to look right to the angel investors and the VCs. The idea that the average invested company represents anything more than a group of people with an in and a talent for schmoozing is easily refuted just by observation. Sure some of them have solid fundamentals, but most are bullshit. There was a tweet, since deleted, a while ago by Ben Dreyfuss (son of Richard Dreyfuss) who is now a writer at Mother Jones. He was attempting to explain how everyone assumes his parents carried him and related the story of being given 140k by his mom to try to make it in Hollywood, after three years he ran out of money and gave up. That story, along with Trump's "small loan of a million dollars" is really not so different from the typical SV startup story. There are countless small companies who are given "small loans of a few million dollars" based on who they know and generally seeming like they aren't complete morons. And yet few in that system would draw a parallel to the sort of privilege and wealth of Trump's ilk, though substantially there are many similarities. The folks in SV tend to dress down and avoid excess signs of luxury until they've "made it" proper, but it's not as far removed from rich parents giving their spoiled children cushy jobs in the family business as most people would hope.
- hathym 10y agoif you came here without reading the article, all you need to know is that Theranos is fucked.
- tn13 10y agoCan someone please summarize what this actually means? The article is behind paywall and the title is cryptic. What does "void" mean ? Less accurate, completely wrong, completely random ? What does Two years refer to ?
- ludamad 10y agoYou can use the 'web' link
- return0 10y agoThe reporting by Carreyrou is particularly insistent to put Holmes front-center in each of this series of articles. She's in the article subtitle and first image again. I wonder if other execs are also responsible for this disaster.
- oneloop 10y ago"Theranos has declined to quantify to Walgreens the scale of its test corrections" Doesn't seem like they're learning anything.
- foobar1962 10y agoSo when is the Edison estate going to issue a cease order against Theranos for using their name and damaging the reputation?
- bane 10y agoAgain, one of the most important interviews with Holmes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBs-oj7U-bo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBs-oj7U-bo Edison is discussed. "We don't use Edison for anything and haven't for a few years now."