There are two possible "fake it until you make it" levels going on here. Say you draw a regular sample of blood and run tests with competitor's products until

There are two possible "fake it until you make it" levels going on here. Say you draw a regular sample of blood and run tests with competitor's products until yours work. Tests are real, but everyone thinks your tests are doing the work. That's one way. The other way is you take a drop of blood and produce unreliable results. Generally "fake it until you make it" has some delivery of the actual product, even if it costs more to produce than it generates in revenue. Or it requires human execution of something which appears to be automated. The Theranos case is interesting because it straight up didn't work. It definitely crossed over from "getting something done differently than it appears" into "straight up fabrication, intimidation, lies, and buying off the politically influential." Look at the board for the simple reason it gets a lot of attention (beside hitting all the tropes). Short on medical, long on political influence.