
Theranos - car
http://www.theranos.com
======
justinjlynn
Theranos is a medical laboratory that appears to have developed new methods of
measuring lab values in small sample sizes more quickly. This is interesting
because it means that instead of a traditional blood draw with a needle and
vial requiring a trained phlebotomist and healthy veins, physicians can use
blood collected from a finger stick -- a far less invasive and painful
procedure. Additionally, it appears that they've managed to keep costs very
low by automating everything -- this also improves their accuracy. I would
love to get a look at their technology and implementation. From a biogeek's
perspective this is insanely great.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That is a pretty stunning board of directors as well. I don't doubt their CEO
can get an introduction to, and lunch with, nearly anyone on the planet.

~~~
spartango
This board seems heavily geared to do deals for defense-related applications.
That's fine; getting deals with the Armed Forces and VA is feasible and quite
rewarding.

What they overtly lack is connections to the healthcare world. I'm surprised
they aren't publicly roped into Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic or Kaiser, as
they to support novel technologies in this space. I suppose you can argue that
the business model is fundamentally incompatible, but I've seen Mayo and
Kaiser go in anyway; they can acquire these labs and roll them into operations
pretty easily.

~~~
mr_luc
Serious question: what economic incentive does the healthcare world have to
adopt something like this?

If it's a finger prick, there's less to mark up.

From the outside, it seems like the entire healthcare industry is built on
being purposefully inefficient so as to create large costs that they can in
turn mark up.

To the VA, inefficiency is a problem. In the healthcare world in general, it
doesn't seem to bother anyone.

~~~
pdonis
_what economic incentive does the healthcare world have to adopt something
like this?_

Not much, which is why this service should not be offered through the standard
healthcare system. I can see two other ways to do it:

(1) I walk into a drugstore, sit down at the testing machine, select the tests
I want, swipe my credit card, and the machine takes a drop of blood from my
finger, runs the test, and gives me a printout of the results.

(2) Home testing kits for every common lab test, not just blood sugar.

~~~
spartango
Note that Quest Diagnostics has a drugstore partnership with CVS[1], directly
competing with Theranos+Wallgreens. Labcorp has similar offerings, although
some are whitelabeled.

[1]
[http://ir.questdiagnostics.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=82068&p=irol-...](http://ir.questdiagnostics.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=82068&p=irol-
newsArticle_print&ID=323137&highlight=)

~~~
pdonis
But these tests still require large blood samples, and they have to go back to
the lab to be tested, right? So you can't just walk into the drugstore, get
tested, and walk out with the results.

------
MichaelGG
Does this mean that I'll be able to walk in and order my own blood tests in
the US, without being extorted by a doctor? I see zero reason for me to be
forced to schedule time with a doctor, pay her, just for her to "order" tests
and have the results sent only to her, and then pay her again to read them
back to me.

I get regular liver checks due to medication I take. Being able to walk into a
lab and download the results online is a great convenience, but not something
allowed in the US at the moment (to my knowledge).

~~~
heurist
Their website said you still need a doctor's note. It would be nice to avoid
that in the future, I'd get cheap tests done all the time just out of
curiosity.

~~~
melling
Yes, I'm not sure about the types of tests that are done but if there are some
that you could run periodically to compare numbers, it might prove useful to
monitor how one's body changes over time.

------
smoyer
"We believe access to accurate, affordable, real-time diagnostic information
is a basic human right."

There's a bit of a conflict-of-interest if the company that makes money
providing "X" declares that "X" is a basic human right. Even as a non-profit
(most hospitals are non-profit, but that just means the corporation doesn't
keep earnings), you can't justify that statement.

~~~
nohuck13
Agreed, although I don't mind so much whether they are making money off it-
anyone making money off promoting freedom of speech is welcome to promote free
speech as a human right.

But there's an issue of basic human right inflation thats slightly
distasteful. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to own property
without it being arbitrarily taken away for you by someone stronger. Those are
basic human rights, and they don't have to be provided at someone else's cost.

I'm a strong supporter of an individual right to healthcare, provided by
society/government, but that's a right agreed by social contract... Saying it
in stronger terms risks devaluing in a a real way the more basic rights, which
billions of people don't have.

Maybe I'm being pedantic given that this is PR copy...

Edit: carbocation said this 15 minutes ago, oops, upvoted

~~~
fizx
Who grants basic rights? If they're God-given, perhaps they're immutable.
Nature grants no rights, and is perfectly willing to stand by idle while we
slaughter each other by the millions.

The alternative is that basic rights are agreed upon by the society, and as
the society matures and evolves, why shouldn't its understanding of what basic
rights are change?

~~~
nohuck13
What rights do you think have changed?

~~~
fizx
Do rights change, or does the expression of a right change? I believe everyone
has a right to an education. Obviously that education will have changed from
4000BCE to 2013. What about the right to create and choose family? How does
that intertwine with society's thoughts about homosexuality?

I guess a good answer to that question would be a PhD dissertation, not a HN
comment. I wish I knew the answer, or that it was easy for me to express.

~~~
nohuck13

      I guess a good answer to that question would be a PhD dissertation, not a HN comment. I wish I knew the answer, or that it was easy for me to express
    

Very true :) we are not the first to discuss this. Nor is it the first time a
legitimately interesting HN post about technology has turned into a side
debate about quasi-libertarian philosophy.

------
gojomo
The website design hides the message in frills and imagery, but the essence
appears to be:

Faster/cheaper blood-testing, via a smaller/quicker samples (a fingertip-prick
rather than needle-stick).

~~~
ott2
Your summary is worth a thousand web sites.

~~~
onedev
Can we make this saying a thing? I want it to be a thing.

------
noir_lord
Yep, I still have no idea who they are or what they do.

It's a pretty looking website though.

[http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2010/07/08/theranos-
rai...](http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2010/07/08/theranos-
raises-45m-for-personalized-medicine/) actually made it a lot clearer than
their website did.

~~~
taf2
the pictures of the people kind of creeps me out. the technology sounds great
but the website design kind of gives me a half life feeling... like if I give
them my blood next thing we know I'll be walking around like a zombie.

besides that - website looks great. It would be great if my kids did could
only have to deal with a finger prick to draw blood... definitely one of my
worst memories growing up.

~~~
sesqu
I know exactly what you mean. I haven't seen a website scream "ulterior
motives" quite so loudly in a long while.

------
jkuria
Yep, it is a shame their site doesn't do a better job of telling their story
but this article in this weekend's wsj does:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732412300457905...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324123004579055003869574012.html)

A real game changer I think.

------
dlisboa
So, it's a health testing company that will keep all my blood-related health
information and make it "actionable", with the backing of James Mattis,
William Perry and none other than Henry Kissinger. There are more soldiers in
that board there than doctors.

The only way I'd give them my blood would be to infect them with a disease.

~~~
X4
Just recently I had a visit at an allergist and found the entire procedure so
primitive, that I nicely informed the doctor that they could upgrade the way
they do tests. I or anyone else technically minded could very easily come up
with less prehistoric tools, but he was as expected not interested in any
improvements. I hate school-medicine.

Thanks for the background info, it's always worth to know who is behind
something. Even the best thing that can happen to humanity would be abused, if
supported and financed by sick minds.

------
gjkood
Very interesting people on the Board of Directors.

Former heavyweights in the diplomatic, intelligence and military government
sectors (George Shultz, Senator Samuel Nunn, Henry Kissinger etc).

No big names from the technology or VC space are mentioned however.

Something big is brewing.

~~~
crassus
They'd be dead within the year without some hefty political backing. The FDA
does not play nice with novelty, ask any biomedical startup founder.

~~~
spartango
My experience in the space is that this is a mischaracterization of the FDA,
but also misses an important point:

Theranos does not fall under the FDA's mandate in its current form. It is a
CLIA-certified laboratory operation, regulated under CDC rules and scrutinized
most likely by the College of American Pathologists(CAP). The CLIA/CAP
scrutiny is very different from the FDA device/drug process, focusing on
protocol and output. Even if they have novel technology, it is often
classified as a laboratory developed test(LDT) and falls outside of the FDA's
mandate (for now).

Many startups have achieved CLIA-certification without too much difficulty,
from Foundation Medicine to Veracyte to Counsyl. It's totally reasonable and
doesn't take too long.

------
redschell
Wow. That board of directors is a sight to behold. Looks more like a panel at
the World Economic Forum. How on earth did the founder manage to get such
high-profile backers?

------
rachelbythebay
They seem to have dropped their big map marker right on top of Agilent
(between 280 and Lawrence in Santa Clara). If you do a search for 95051 (that
zip code), it eventually tells you there are no locations there.

I wonder what the significance of that marker is, then...

~~~
jnardiello
It's just saying that clicking there you find an actual map.

~~~
nwh
It'd be nice to have the marker on a real pace though, rather than being
plopped in a random spot.

~~~
hrkristian
I was going to write a response adding that adding a picture of the actual
location would've been just as easy, instead I made a post about how I was
going to make a post about how ready it'd be to use a snapshot of the actual
location.

------
gojomo
Seems like an ease/cost breakthrough for health-monitoring... so I'm surprised
they picked a name that sounds so much like 'Thanatos', the Greek god of
death.

------
fosap
Ok, what the hell are they selling? It says in "our tests":

\- Oncology \- Pediatrics \- Geriatrics

Yeah. Would you go to a doctor that is specialized on "cancer and stuff"? I
wouldn't. This is as unspecific as one can get.

------
aheilbut
It's odd how little information is provided about the actual new technologies
behind this.

------
benrapscallion
it's weird how the founders' background is all about "dropped out from here"
and "dropped out from there". Is dropping out an achievement?

~~~
redschell
It's always been a gamble. If you achieve even a modicum of success or
notoriety, your "drop out" status becomes incredibly valuable. You're a
trailblazer, a rebel who blew past convention on her way to glory.

If you fail, you're an arrogant idiot who thought she was too cool for school.

What's fascinating about Holmes is that she's a drop out in the biotech/health
care realm. This has long been considered a protected area, one where heavy
education is a must, as lives are on the line. Founders are expected to be
PhDs or MDs with decades of research and/or clinical experience.

Holmes has a decade of experience, and no degree. This is going to be a lot of
fun to watch.

~~~
caycep
It sounds like she dropped out in 2003 to work "in biotech" so she's probably
working on this for the past decade. That she's gotten to this stage is pretty
impressive - considering the board, plus the "careers" page and the type of
folks they're looking for right now looks like they're off and running

------
cypherpunks01
Just today, I was just searching around for a way to order my own Quest lab
tests here in the US. (I'm on the East Coast, Theranos doesn't seem to have
locations here)

Does anyone know of any e-doctors that will provide me with lab orders on my
behalf? I've seen WellnessFX, but I want to order Quest panels for things they
don't offer in their package. Who else is doing something similar to them?

------
sker
I've been waiting so long for this. As someone who avoids syringes like the
plague, I always wondered, how come we have robots in Mars, yet we can't come
up with something better than injecting a large piece of metal into our
bodies? Now I just need to find a way to give them my money.

------
beyondcompute
Strangely designed web-site. When you open it you don't understand what they
provide. Is it a service, app, or idea? Device or standard? Then while
clicking through sections you see some clipartish generic-looking pictures of
people and ipad screens. Only the small vial with blood promises some useful
information but no descriptive text or images provide any detail (why this
small vial is better and experience is less painful than generic tests?). So
after skimming the site reveals nothing you get irritated and leave. There's
so much interesting things on Hacker News. Maybe those guys are changing the
world but their web-site does not convey it.

------
realo
Am I the only one here who thinks all those people imaged on the web site have
really weird eyes?

Creepy.

~~~
X4
I think the intent was to show how humane and globally thinking they are, by
showing different ethnic races.

But to me it looks as if they want to hoard blood-samples for a DNA-Database
in order to clone the best of us into super-soldiers. If the military has a
DNA-Database of every human on the world they think are worth living, they
could wipe all of us out, then re-breed the world to their own likings. I
think some billionaires would love this sick sick idea.

------
jboynyc
"one tiny drop changes everything."

They might want to come up with a different tag line:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rule)

------
glhaynes
I assume the image of the micro-vial balanced on a fingertip is meant to
illustrate how small the quantity of blood is, but, at least for me, the
initial evocation is of drawing blood from beneath the fingernail.

------
marcamillion
Wow...one of their board members is Henry Kissinger -
[http://www.theranos.com/our-company](http://www.theranos.com/our-company)

I wonder how they pulled that off.

This is interesting....I wonder what the technology behind this looks like. Is
it really that difficult to achieve 'instant, accurate' results?

Why is that? Is it because the traditional way is to just put a blood sample
on a fungus and see what happens?

------
petemc_
When I was in South Korea a while back I was able to get a blood test via a
finger prick and the results back before I left the clinic that day.
Admittedly, the chap at the clinic did think I had hepatitis, but apparently
that can be explained by the excessive amount of whiskey I had consumed the
previous day.

------
aheilbut
Holmes has a set of lectures on Udemy about building a team, if you want to
learn how to put together a board like that:

[https://www.udemy.com/the-essentials-of-team-
building/](https://www.udemy.com/the-essentials-of-team-building/)

------
jerryhuang100
their patents portfolios seems huge with 17 issued and mostly covered
microfluidic diagnostics. one of them is titled "Real-time detection of
influenza virus" (US 8,007,999). it would be really disruptive if they could
do their claimed 1000+ lab tests with their proprietary microfludic devices in
under 4hr.

------
_pmf_
> We believe access to accurate, affordable, real-time diagnostic information
> is a basic human right.

Your employer thinks likewise.

------
medman77
The company is all hot air. They have a board full of retired military figure
heads that have no experience in medical devices or retail services.
Additionally, they do not have any products to show. Look at their patents.
They are all very general and broad. There has been NO FDA CLEARANCE for
anything they are doing, which raises legal questions. Speaking of legal,
search for lawsuits they are involved in. Their core technology is not even
theirs. They stole it from someone else.

~~~
spartango
While I have no idea if any of the other claims are true, it's important to
note that they do claim to be regulatory-cleared (not FDA, not relevant in
this case): they claim to be running a CLIA-certified lab.

CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments)[1] defines the regulatory
standards for clinical labs which take in samples and perform medical tests on
them. It works very differently from FDA drug or device approval. Most often
the certification is done by an organization such as the College of American
Pathologists (CAP), which scrutinizes a lab's protocols and output[2].

In any case, if they are CLIA-certified they are open for business, legally
speaking.

[1]: [http://wwwn.cdc.gov/clia/](http://wwwn.cdc.gov/clia/) [2]:
[http://www.cap.org/apps/cap.portal?_nfpb=true&cntvwrPtlt_act...](http://www.cap.org/apps/cap.portal?_nfpb=true&cntvwrPtlt_actionOverride=%2Fportlets%2FcontentViewer%2Fshow&cntvwrPtlt%7BactionForm.contentReference%7D=laboratory_accreditation%2Faboutlap.html&_pageLabel=cntvwr)

------
bsullivan01
With a board like that they'll probably get a lot of VA /Medicare /Medicaid
contracts and swim on cash. But then Labcorp etc will fight back, they already
offer deeeeep discounts for Aetna and other major clients (seen $7 for them,
$100+ for cash payers.) Also on top of my head, I can think of newborn
screening, that is all done via heel prick, so the tech exists.

Unless the business plan call for a free first test for everyone in
USA...sponsored by NSA ;)

