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Theranos Has Struggled with Blood Tests

wsj.com

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Re: Theranos Has Struggled with Blood Tests

#51

Post by forgetsusername »

gozo wrote: post #15
ccvannorman wrote: post #8

In startup-world, this is known as "faking it until you make it." Well done Theranos, keep at it!

Depends on what you mean by "make it". Banks quite often convince people to by into funds they know won't perform. They "make it" in terms of fees, but I don't find it very admirable.

>Banks quite often convince people to by into funds they know won't perform

Please provide an example where a bank "convinced" people to buy something it "knew" wouldn't perform. That would be fraud. I'm sure it occurs, but certainly not "quite often".

And, no, Goldman Sachs going short securities it sold as a market-maker isn't an example of such.

Re: Theranos Has Struggled with Blood Tests

#53

Post by fluidcruft »

dkural wrote: post #19
drugsAreBad0001 wrote: post #3

Side note: Did anyone else find the writing for this article absolutely horrendous? “They were never able to produce them,” she says. Ms. King says the company did show detailed testing-accuracy data to the nurse. I would have flunked freshman-english if I wrote papers like this. There was zero effort to link thoughts together all-throughout the piece. I thought the point of a pay-wall was to promote and support good…

You're quoting out of context. The "she" in the quote is not Ms. King, which is very clear in the article.

It's also pretty clear without context that those two sentences only make any sense if "she" is not Ms. King.

Re: Theranos Has Struggled with Blood Tests

#55

Post by cowsandmilk »

sremani wrote: post #6
dbcooper wrote: post #4

A critical opinion piece on Theranos from the journal Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine : http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cclm.2015.53.issue-7/cclm-20...

Thanks for the article, this quote hit me >> Details of the Theranos technology have not been disclosed to scientific journals and for this reason it is not possible to comment. << So they have handful of tests that are FDA approved and then their protocols or technology never went through scientific scrutiny, but the whole company is valued $9billion? This is disconcerting.

What I find disconcerting is the faith Walgreen's has put in them. To be honest, their revenue plus the partnership with Walgreen's likely justifies the valuation. It is just that Walgreen's shouldn't partner with organizations for testing that aren't on solid scientific footing.

Re: Theranos Has Struggled with Blood Tests

#56

Post by cowsandmilk »

danso wrote: post #16
nrao123 wrote: post #12

I am genuinely confused by the overall thrust of the article. 1st Theme says: Theranos doesn't use Edison (thier in house testing device) & instead use regular equipment from companies like Siemens. This is a marketing problem because the company is saying its using one device but is actually using another one. 2nd theme: lab tests from Theranos differ from generally accepted standards. How do they differ if in fact…

You seem to be missing the part where former employees claim that the company skirted federal regulations by using other machines for the proficiency testing, while using the Edison machines for patient testing. The accuracy of those claims have some relevance to the kind of speculation you hope to make.

exactly, the dilution of samples needs to move to the forefront of the discussion.

Theranos:

(1) takes a much smaller amount of blood, claiming they will use the Edison machine to analyze it

(2)(a) sometimes uses the Edison machine, whose accuracy is disputed

(2)(b) sometimes dilutes the sample to test using a regular machine. The dilution moves normal concentrations outside the range of detection of the machine, so when a 10x dilution has its concentration multiplied by 10, there are huge errors, often causing misdiagnosis

When Theranos receives a proficiency test, they don't receive a small amount of blood. They receive the amount of blood a normal lab receives. These are the only samples that they can run in the manner the standard machines were designed for.

Theranos competes on costing less and taking less blood. The doubts are all around whether you can get accurate results with smaller amounts of blood from a different body part.

Re: Theranos Has Struggled with Blood Tests

#57

Post by joezydeco »

asgard1024 wrote: post #32
frozenport wrote: post #7

>>Theranos claims that the usual delay of testing in centralized laboratories is approximately 3 days and that they will generate and deliver their data much faster (e.g., within 4 h). The 3-day delay claim is not accurate. The bulk of laboratory testing in centralized laboratories is completed within an hour or two (calculated from time of sample collection to time of results posting for physician review). For examp…

> This is the same kind of bullshit I see in academia, where a new technology is promised to replace an old technology that works fine, but now they have a 9 billion dollar valuation! I am not sure it is bullshit, maybe it's just competition? Over time, companies within an industry become complacent, cut costs, and decrease quality of service. Somebody (a young idealist perhaps?) comes along and says, hey, we can do…

Theranos' area of interest, diagnostic microfluidics, is nothing exotic or new to the giants in the diagnostic industry.

I spent a number of years with one major company in this field, and back in the 1990s they already had a decade of R&D, and countless millions of dollars, invested in this area. It was a difficult area of research back then and it continues to be.

The idea that one scientist could come up with a concept to outsmart those companies is certainly possible and makes a very compelling investor story. But the reality is probably a little bit different.

Re: Theranos Has Struggled with Blood Tests

#58

Post by pkaye »

ghufran_syed wrote: post #28
the_economist wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what the results look like: http://padlet.com/dpetersen/khmmi11wy8hz http://padlet.com/dpetersen/r6dg1vbxmz92 I don't know how an individual could evaluate the accuracy of these results, but the same goes for a non-Theranos blood test as well.

Anecdata: I'm a physician, and get tests done for myself and my family at the Theranos place in Palo Alto, for around $5/test (vs $50 for other labs), and I have no concern about the accuracy of the tests. This abstract discusses some of the possible reasons for variation in test results: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10887452 Of course, none of this proves that the tests are reliable (consistent) and accurate,…

Do you know if anyone can get their blood tested or do you need an doctor's order? Their prices seem quick cheap and it would be nice to get some periodic readings for my chronic health problems.

Re: Theranos Has Struggled with Blood Tests

#59

Post by OopsCriticality »

Seems only sporting to also include a link to their PR response to the WSJ article: https://www.theranos.com/news/posts/statement-from-theranos

Typical PR drivel. It's also a bit rich to complain about scientific inaccuracy, and boast of opening things up to the FDA, when the Theranos testing platform remains to be thoroughly investigated in the peer-reviewed literature.

Re: Theranos Has Struggled with Blood Tests

#60

Post by joezydeco »

rajacombinator wrote: post #38

No fan of this bizarre Illuminati-backed startup, but this article reads like a well funded hedge fund hit piece. Maybe some players shorting OTC contracts on their stock? The biotech industry is heavily manipulated so if they're facing this kind of opposition, maybe it really does make sense to have guys like Henry Kissinger on the board ...

They're not publicly traded.
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