
Can Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes Fend Off Her Critics? - adventured
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-10/can-theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-fend-off-her-critics-
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cwal37
This quote really jumped out at me as almost a caricature of the disconnect
between Silicon Valley internet/communication disruption and "disruption" in
something like medical services.

"While Draper isn’t a board member or official adviser, he says he sees Holmes
frequently. He’s puzzled by Theranos’s troubles and wasn’t aware the company
isn’t currently using its famed nanotainer for anything but a herpes test. The
idea of pausing the relentless push forward to wait for fusty government
approvals doesn’t seem to make sense to one of the investors in Twitter and
Skype. “So they’re going to have to go through each one of those tests before
they can even use the nanotainer?” he says, sounding horrified. “You can run
tests; you just say they are not FDA-approved,” Draper continues, referring to
the nanotainer. “If that’s not the way it’s happening, I’m definitely going to
give Elizabeth a call about this.” He pauses the interview to pull out his
phone. “I would think they can still use the nanotainer and just have some
wording,” he says, typing out a text message to Holmes. “I would think you
just put a little warning label on the thing and say the FDA has not agreed to
the accuracy of these things.”"

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w1ntermute
When it comes to medical devices, Draper's dumb money. The only reason he
invested is because of good ol' nepotism:

> Draper, the venture capitalist and early Theranos investor, says he’s known
> Holmes since she was 6 years old and a friend of his daughter. When she
> decided to start her company, she approached him. He called her parents to
> make sure they were OK with her plan to drop out of school. Then he gave her
> $1 million.

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alanh
> _He called her parents to make sure they were OK with her plan to drop out
> of school. Then he gave her $1 million._

Wow, that’s a heck of a narrative. I would never criticize Ms. Holmes for
using her connections like this, but when stated as above, this investment
sounds like a total freebie. And we all know that, thanks to investor herd
mentality, one investment is a springboard to less skeptical follow-on
investment. In this case, the first investors don't sound skeptical at all,
because they viewed this as a family-friend favor more than an actual business
decision. If Theranos were perceived a hell of an opportunity, do you think
he’d give a rat’s ass if her parents would rather she finish her degree? Can
you imagine an investor calling Zuck’s parents — hey is it OK if your son
continues this facebook thing, or should I encourage him to go back to school?

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SilasX
Don't investors generally care if a very key, single-point-of-failure person
is in a position where they will receive a lot of resistance from family
members to doing necessary tasks?

Edit: For example, if some really competent, unfunded entrepreneur had some
brilliant idea to revolutionize liquor distribution, but their family were
conservative Baptists (or Muslims, or Mormons, etc), wouldn't you want some
kind of reassurance that won't be a problem before you invest?

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alanh
> _leg crossed ankle over knee in a half-lotus manspread power pose._ So, a
> woman with crossed legs is now engaging in manspreading? got it.

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mmagin
"manspreading" is a word?

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slyall
[http://bfy.tw/1hxu](http://bfy.tw/1hxu)

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sremani
One herpes test and 9 Billion valuation. According to Elizabeth Holmes its
none of our business to worry about valuation, since the initial investors are
sophisticated. Now, we know the initial investor is a family friend. She had
10+ years to put something out, and I am sure it is hard, but its about time,
this farce be dismantled once and for all.

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Briel
Relevant: On 27 October 2015, Holmes announced Theranos would publish data
verifying the accuracy of its Edison testing device. They still haven't done
so.

Given the intense scrutiny they're under, if they had the data, you'd think
they would be eager to release it to prove their critics wrong.

~~~
phonon
Maybe it's the graphs on the bottom of [https://www.theranos.com/our-
lab](https://www.theranos.com/our-lab) ?

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Animats
It's embarrassing that this controversy has been going on for a while and
there's still no published hard data on whether this micro-sample thing works.
Theranos needs to try some tests given widely, such as blood glucose or
cholesterol, and compare results with the standard tests. Those can be tested
on a general population.

If this works, it needs to be combined with Google's micro-gun and vacuum
needle-less blood sampler. Or maybe Google/Alphabet will come up with more
micro-sample techniques that work better than Theranos'.

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SilasX
I've been following this case, so I have to ask a stupid question: can't this
be resolved in an afternoon? And one that could have happened years ago?

1) Take blood for the Theranos test.

2) Take blood for normal test.

3) Do they get the same results? If yes, Theranos has viability; if not,
they've been scamming.

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landryraccoon
Not even close. Suppose you're testing for something that only occurs in 1% of
the population or less. What if the Theranos test just never returns a
positive? Then that test is "99% accurate" compared to the "normal" test.

Of course this is just a hypothetical, in real life you have to do a carefully
controlled study - which is exactly what the FDA requires.

~~~
SilasX
Perhaps if it's a binary test, but blood tests typically return a
cardinal/continuous value; it's enough to verify that e.g. Theranos returns
something close to 44 when the reference test returns 44.

No one's disputing that bad statistics can invalidate some comparisons.

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yogi123
I work at a hedge fund and spend most of my time shorting stocks, especially
healthcare/biotech/pharma stocks given the plethora of fraudulent companies in
that space. I remember reading about Theranos several years even though it's
private, and thinking there is no way this thing is not a fraud. I predict
this will eventually be revealed as the biggest fraud ever in silicon valley.
It just checks off way too many fraud boxes, based on my personal pattern
recognition.

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pbreit
Yes, of course: deliver.

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dbcooper
My theory is that the company was originally developed for a military
procurement play, for battlefield diagnostics or similar. Hence their board.

The Washington Post published a very interesting article earlier this month,
in which they used email correspondence to reveal that Theranos pitched their
system to the military, but there were concerns from a DoD official about
it.[1]

>An official evaluating Theranos’s signature blood-testing technology for the
Department of Defense sounded the alarm in 2012 and launched a formal inquiry
with the Food and Drug Administration about the company’s intent to distribute
its tests without FDA clearance

Holmes contacted General Mattis, who had been promoting Theranos within the
military, and he tried to bypass the concerns. In the end, Theranos never
demonstrated the system to the military. Mattis joined their board a year
later.

>According to a Theranos spokeswoman, Mattis and Holmes met in 2011 at a
Marine Memorial event. Mattis, busy overseeing the war in Afghanistan as
commander of the U.S. Central Command, expressed interest in testing
Theranos’s technology in combat areas, according to the e-mails.

>“I’ve met with my various folks and we’re kicking this into overdrive,”
Mattis wrote to Holmes in June 2012. “I’m convinced that your invention will
be a game-changer for us and I want it to be given the opportunity for a
demonstration in-theater soonest.”

>He urged Holmes to call or e-mail him if she felt they needed to talk.

>A month later, frustrated by the military regulatory expert who had contacted
the FDA, Holmes took him up on that offer.

>“I know how incredibly busy you are but thought it was the right thing to let
you know the following,” Holmes wrote.

>She noted that a deputy director working for a division of the military that
oversees regulatory issues and compliance had launched a formal inquiry to
regulators without warning Theranos.

>“I would very much appreciate your help in getting this information corrected
with the regulatory agencies,” Holmes wrote in the e-mail to Mattis. “Since
this misinformation came from within DoD, it will be invaluable if this
information is formally corrected by the right people in DoD.”

>Within hours, Mattis forwarded the exchange to military officials, asking
“how do we overcome this new obstacle.”

>“I have tried to get this device tested in theater asap, legally and
ethically,” Mattis wrote. “This appears to be relatively straight-forward yet
we’re a year into this and not yet deployed.”

>The field demonstration Mattis was seeking never took place.

[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/02/inter...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/02/internal-
emails-reveal-concerns-about-theranoss-fda-compliance-date-back-
years/?postshare=3491449147304325&tid=ss_tw)

~~~
sk5t
Strongly agreed on the company's likely intent to integrate monitoring into US
military training and deployment kits... imagine the military benefit in
knowing every soldier's blood panel and derived data such as stress level on a
near-continuous basis--that's a real force multiplier. Worth $10K/yr/man
easily.

~~~
anon4this1
MD here. The vast majority of soldiers are fit and healthy and will have
completely normal labs 99% of the time. The times when they are not normal
will be insignificant 99% of the time (had a few drinks last night? your GGT
level will be slightly above normal briefly). This information is worth next
to nothing to anyone.

~~~
sk5t
Do soldiers remain so healthy-by-the-numbers in the field? I'm wondering if
many data points would help to identify individuals on the edge of becoming
unfit.

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searine
Vaporware.

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adaml_623
The coverage of Theranos just makes me think of the media as vultures trying
to keep a story stirred up until somethingm anything, happens.

They do the same thing with politicians all the time.

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adaml_623
And the headline should read, "Can Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes fend off the
critical media critics (us) long enough to achieve something"

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vkou
They've had a decade to achieve... Something.

They are currently selling their tests. The same tests that, according to
third-party verifiers don't work.

I don't think media sharks are the problem, here.

