Safeway, Theranos Split After $350M Deal Fizzles

Post by jessaustin » Wed, Nov 11, 2015, 4:09 AM UTC

sk5t wrote: post #32

marcusgarvey wrote: post #17

>Safeway Inc. spent about $350 million to build clinics in more than 800 of its supermarkets to offer blood tests by startup Theranos Inc. >The $350 million price tag was equivalent to more than half of Safeway’s net income of $596.5 million in 2012. Safeway had revenue of $44.21 billion. Safeway also invested more than $10 million in Theranos, one former Safeway executive said. >Two of the former Safeway executives…

Well, Holmes _did_ reassure Burd. We cannot rule out the possibility that she is an exceptionally deft reassurer. In seriousness, Safeway gets durable capital improvements to their stores for their $350mm, still useful without Project T-Rex.

Post by srunni » Wed, Nov 11, 2015, 4:13 AM UTC

sghodas wrote: post #40

colmvp wrote: post #9

Some important points from that article: > Current and former Safeway executives said Theranos missed deadlines for the blood-testing rollout. They also said several Safeway executives questioned the accuracy of results Theranos gave to Safeway employees tested at a clinic in the supermarket chain’s headquarters in Pleasanton, Calif. > Theranos often drew the same employee’s blood twice, first with blood from a finge…

The positive predictive value for the prostate-specific antigen test for prostate cancer is only 30%. This means that only 30% of people who test positive for elevated levels of prostate-specific antigen actually have prostate cancer. This is an intrinsic problem with testing for prostate-specific antigen not with Theranos' testing.

Post by danso » Wed, Nov 11, 2015, 4:16 AM UTC

Pyxl101 wrote: post #27

danso wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most irritating things about Theranos's defenders is their argument about how Theranos should be given lesser scrutiny because of how important and noble its mission is...that's the exact opposite of how it should be, IMO. Using Facebook as the archetypical unjustifiably-rich-startup (not my opinion, just well-repeated), in which the goal is to lower friction between friend-network-contacts...even if FB's…

> But the bigger problem is that it isn't easy to compare health tests... It ought to be relatively easy. I mean, not easy for the average Joe, but easy for anyone seriously interested in doing it. Draw blood twice: once with the finger prick, and once with a regular vein draw, and then test the two samples using the different methodologies. Compare the results. Seems like a fairly trivial experiment to run and repro…

Post by trhway » Wed, Nov 11, 2015, 4:38 AM UTC

firebones wrote: post #39

danso wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most irritating things about Theranos's defenders is their argument about how Theranos should be given lesser scrutiny because of how important and noble its mission is...that's the exact opposite of how it should be, IMO. Using Facebook as the archetypical unjustifiably-rich-startup (not my opinion, just well-repeated), in which the goal is to lower friction between friend-network-contacts...even if FB's…

Never underestimate the collective self-delusion that can emerge in a situation like this. You have a wunderkind founder, the resident genius, who is telling everyone to believe and robotically dismissing critics--who is going to question her? You have insiders and investors who want to believe--keep your mouth shut! You have ex-employees who expressed doubt vilified. Mass willful suspension of disbelief seems much m…

Post by geomark » Wed, Nov 11, 2015, 4:54 AM UTC