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Along with the rest of the weirdness being mentioned by others, some of this really doesn't begin to make sense to me. o_O
Custom compilers have been a thing a few times in the past, but in the late 90s, what possible reason could there be for this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cynical interpretation: well-funded med-tech company hires an incredibly well-connected board and presumably a great PR firm, and lands an epic puff piece in Fortune. Uncynical interpretation: well-funded med-tech company quietly grows to become an inspiring success, thanks to game-changing technology and a brilliant founder. I see both of these interpretations as compatible. In fact, #1 can often follow from #2. In…
I had a smile on my face while reading this article. Regardless of the PR behind the article, it's certainly refreshing to see a startup like this. I'm rooting for them. Medtech needs game changing technologies!
> “I realized that I could have just as well been looking into the eyes of a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates.” > Though Theranos is largely unknown even in Silicon Valley, that is about to change. > Precisely how Theranos accomplishes all these amazing feats is a trade secret. > The analyzers look like large desktop computer towers. Holmes declines to explain how they work, or even allow them to be photographed, citing th…
I skimmed through the first part, but based on your comment I went back and read the article. > As a bonus, board meetings are also attended by the company’s de facto legal adviser at large, trial lawyer David Boies. Boies represented the DOJ in the Microsoft antitrust proceedings and Al Gore in Bush v. Gore. What an odd cast for a startup board. I wonder what connects all these people, other than all being high-prof…
> And we could put a cellphone chip on it, and it could telemeter out to the doctor or the patient what was going on.
It's very doubtful she understood how any of that works, or would work in her product/patent.
Underlying story seems it's absurd this was patent-able.
Can someone help me on the technical aspects of the blood tests they've developed? The premise appears to be that they take extremely small samples ("25 to 50 microliters") and run lots of tests ("as many as 70 different tests from a single draw") using "the same fundamental chemical methods". This compares with standard blood tests which require 2 orders of magnitude more blood ("numerous tubes of blood, each contai…
http://www.rsc.org/ej/LC/2009/b911553f/b911553f-f1.gif
Here's an early paper to use as a root for citation-chasing:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/09254005908...
Here's a conference that has been going strong for 7 years:
http://www.microtas2013.org/general.html
The technology has already been developed and proven in an academic setting. It's mature enough that you can find cheap textbooks for it. Microfluidic assays (which can be combined, like circuits, on a silicon chip) for every conceivable metric of interest have been developed, debugged, and sold to incumbent diagnostics companies. It was only a matter of time before someone integrated them, but the "usual suspects" were tripped up by market kinetics:
No academic group has been sufficiently capitalized to pursue an "Integrate All The Assays" (IATA) project. A lab typically pursues 2 or 3 assays at a time, which they will often integrate into a "µTAS" which is academic slang for IATA but should get its own term because typical µTASs measure 2 or 3 things which is far below the potential of the technology (what I'm terming "IATA").
Industrial groups that were in a position to go IATA already had hard-won silos in the payola+bundling ridden rat's nest of the medical supply industry. They wanted to keep those (payola+bundling = low competition and high margins) and they didn't want to fight the war-on-many-fronts that would arise if they tried to invade everyone else's silos at once. The big risk is that their competitors in every silo could undercut/outmaneuver them in individual silos faster than they could weave a political network to unify purchasing across silos.
Well, now someone has figured out how to do just that. Strategy: lots of money, lots of connections, and a killer entry strategy. It's all in the execution, as always.
Two interesting questions to keep in mind as this plays out:
1. Now that someone has gone IATA, will the medical device supply industry become truly competitive again? I think there's a nonzero chance of that happening. That would be a dream come true for consumers and medtech startups alike.
2. How much of the proceeds will filter back to the people who actually developed the technology? Obviously the answer will be "a teeny tiny fraction," but the amount in absolute terms will be an important indicator (to me, personally, and I suspect others) as to how well the patent system works in this sector. Will it be like the software sector (patents discourage implementation AND don't encourage innovation) or will it be like the drug sector (patents function more or less as they were intended albeit with the caveat that a lion's share of the proceeds flows, as it always does, to capital)?
The article also mentions how they do it is trade secret but I'm curious what the innovations are here. They throw some things out there though, like bypassing FDA hurdles and shrinking equipment and blood sample size down. It sounds like they're just streamlining a sleepy, well entrenched industry? A noble endeavor but the juicy details would be nice if we could get them.
Some day I hope that we can get these tests small and cheap enough that they could be purchased OTC and run easily and frequently at home. Collect a few hundred samples points while you check your weight in the morning and ship the data off to Amazon for data mining. It would wipe out surprise "I've had diabetes for the last 10 years and didn't realize it" diagnosis and that's a huge, huge win. Not to mention what the QS crowd would do with it.
Not sure what to make of that bit about the restaurant. If she's really testing her blood after every meal, then I don't see how she could miss the impact her veggie, carb, low-protein, no-fat diet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I skimmed through the first part, but based on your comment I went back and read the article. > As a bonus, board meetings are also attended by the company’s de facto legal adviser at large, trial lawyer David Boies. Boies represented the DOJ in the Microsoft antitrust proceedings and Al Gore in Bush v. Gore. What an odd cast for a startup board. I wonder what connects all these people, other than all being high-prof…
Seems rather sad state of our Patent system here in the US where a 19 year old with no prior technical background, who was a Chemical Engineering student, a sophomore no less (meaning barely finished or finishing General Ed. requirements and just starting Major courses), can write and file for a highly-technical patent involving radios, sensors, embedded devices, and the like. > And we could put a cellphone chip on i…
Beyond that, I'm not sure if the patent is absurd or not...but I definitely don't think its absurd for a 19 year old woman to write up and be awarded a patent.
> she started her first business while still in high school, selling C++ compilers to Chinese universities. Along with the rest of the weirdness being mentioned by others, some of this really doesn't begin to make sense to me. o_O Custom compilers have been a thing a few times in the past, but in the late 90s, what possible reason could there be for this?
Sounds fishy tbh
"“The movie goal is absolutely core to what we’re working to do,”... We’re building an early-detection system,”
