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Theranos

theranos.com

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Re: Theranos

#81

Post by seehafer »

crassus wrote: post #15
gjkood wrote: post #9

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.

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.

This, and the choice of board is perfect if you're trying to get military and VA contracts.

Re: Theranos

#82

Post by seehafer »

dlisboa wrote: post #34

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.

I'd bet anything the choice of board is due to Theranos looking to get military and/or other government contracts very, very soon.

Re: Theranos

#83

Post by nohuck13 »

fizx wrote: post #78
nohuck13 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What rights do you think have changed?

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…

  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.

Re: Theranos

#84

Post by ChuckMcM »

justinjlynn wrote: post #10

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…

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.

Re: Theranos

#85

Post by [deleted] »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #84
justinjlynn wrote: post #10

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…

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.

[deleted]

Re: Theranos

#86

Post by rloomba »

medman77 wrote: post #48

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 co…

I would tend to agree. Nanomix (nano.com) has been trying to accomplish this for the past ~6 years or so. Combining a complex biological assay + micofluidics + high precision sensing technology is not a trivial task. I want to see some hard data verified from a third party.

Re: Theranos

#87

Post by MarkSweep »

benrapscallion wrote: post #46

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

Interestingly some of their jobs for software engineers require "B.S. degree […] one of the World's Top 50 ranked Technical Universities". Other jobs like the Android position require a BS degree. It seems a little odd to require a degree after deciding you don't need one yourself.

Re: Theranos

#88

Post by chiph »

MichaelGG wrote: post #12

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 resu…

You're paying for her expertise in reading the results and making a diagnosis. Sure, the Theranos charts come back with indicators that show if your values are "normal" or not, but if your health situation is complex, self-diagnosis might be a bad thing.

Re: Theranos

#89

Post by 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.

Re: Theranos

#90

Post by spartango »

medman77 wrote: post #48

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 co…

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/ [2]: http://www.cap.org/apps/cap.portal?_nfpb=true&cntvwrPtlt_act...

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