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This CEO is out for blood

fortune.com

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Re: This CEO is out for blood

#71

Post by jonnathanson »

gohrt wrote: post #59
jonnathanson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What an odd cast for a startup board. I wonder what connects all these people, other than all being high-profile." Government relations. Influence with policymakers and thought leaders. Makes total sense for a med-tech company. This is an industry where "non-market factors" (government regulation, threat of competitive lobbying or lawsuits by incumbents, etc.) play an enormous role. If I were starting a med-tech com…

Why would that be interesting? Boies is an attorney, he doesn't display his own point of view, he is (one of the best in the world) professional presenter of clients' point of view. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Boies#Notable_cases

"Interesting" meaning it would be interesting to see them in a room together. Meaning fun.

I'm not suggesting Boies was anything but neutral in the case against MSFT. Maybe reading too much from my "on the same side" comment, or else maybe I phrased that too ambiguously.

Re: This CEO is out for blood

#72

Post by w1ntermute »

larrys wrote: post #70
w1ntermute wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's how Theranos got all those high profile board members: http://fortune.com/2014/06/12/theranos-board-directors/ TL;DR: founder met/convinced one well-connected DC insider in 2011, and he brought all his buddies along for the ride.

Also noting that with the exception of Frist a quick read shows no connection to healthcare. As others noted these board members appear for another purpose such as government issues or attracting others by the halo of their importance.

> with the exception of Frist a quick read shows no connection to healthcare

Well, there's also Shultz, who was "a director at biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences," according to this article.

But you're right that those people are mainly on the board for their influence in Washington. The importance of that when taking on an entrenched and heavily regulated industry can't be overstated.

Re: This CEO is out for blood

#73

Post by [deleted] »

w1ntermute wrote: post #67
jessaustin wrote: post #65

Holmes had then just spent the summer working in a lab at the Genome Institute in Singapore, a post she had been able to fill thanks to having learned Mandarin in her spare hours as a Houston teenager. Everyone knows that English is spoken in Singapore, right? I'm not saying Mandarin wouldn't look good on a resume, but very few Singaporeans with the education to work in that facility would not also be fluent in the i…

I immediately picked up on that as well. Along with the whole "selling C++ compilers to Chinese universities in the late 90s" thing, it makes the article seem rather poorly researched and overly adulatory.

[deleted]

Re: This CEO is out for blood

#74

Post by marincounty »

Alupis wrote: post #56
ladytron wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Her father. Holmes comes from a very wealthy and prominent family. Her father, Christian Holmes IV, has had many high ranking jobs in government. I'm assuming the board was built from his numerous government and family wealth connections. Coming from wealth doesn't hurt but somehow the articles always leave that bit out ...

> Coming from wealth doesn't hurt but somehow the articles always leave that bit out ... It's not a "sexy" PR piece if the story reads "Wealthy people get Wealthier", now is it? ;-P

It's always left out, and this I will get bashed again for agreeing. I think what she is doing is great. I sometimes think doctors prescribe medication and just hope for the best? Actually, they do just hope for the best! I know they shy away from any technology that could be used againt them in a malpractice suit. As, to getting better if you are sick--just believing you will get better is so important. Yes, follow doctors orders, and believe you will get better. This effect, called the Placebo Effect is too often left out. I've seen people run to the Internet when they are diagnosed with a disease--and they just get worse. Back on topic--I hope her company helps patients, and brings down the cost of medicine, and not another investment story?

Re: This CEO is out for blood

#75

Post by Gatsky »

Well, cheaper and easier testing is great for everyone, particular in environments that can't run expensive fully equipped pathology laboratories eg rural areas, developing nations, refugee camps etc.

But at the end of the day, we need better tests, not better ways of testing. Looking through their test menu, it's the same old diagnostic blood tests we've been using for the last 30 or even 50 years. Hopefully there is something revolutionary behind the hype. I don't think it will be consumerization - none of those listed tests is going to help early detection of anything by getting yourself tested at Walgreens while you're buying toothpaste. Similarly, most of the tests are only useful when applied in a well fleshed out diagnostic process that involves collecting data about symptoms and medical history to generate a prior probability of the disease. Otherwise the false positive rate is high, and the false negative rate difficult to deal with. The utility of serial monitoring as a marker of health is also far from proven, but is an interesting idea. At the moment though, if you go to your doctor and say your homocysteine levels are fluctuating strangely, they won't have a clue what to do about it...

I would also add that proving that a test can be used to detect a disease early, and that early detection leads to a measurable improvement in disease outcomes takes a very long time, a lot of patients and a lot of money. So if they have made some great advance in microfluidic chemoproteomics that can actually detect the early traces of a disease process then that would be amazing, but one must remain skeptical.

Re: This CEO is out for blood

#76

Post by thrownaway2424 »

gone35 wrote: post #46
OrwellianChild wrote: post #27

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…

Can someone help me on the technical aspects of the blood tests they've developed? On the specifics, I'm afraid nobody can for now. They have refused to peer-review their protocols and validation data, so their assays are essentially a black box. So far, incredibly, they have managed to get away with this thanks to a glaring regulatory loophole (as the article explains); but sooner or later they'll have to open up if…

Wouldn't it be fairly easy to determine their FP/FN figures just by sending them lots of blood samples with known composition? If it's a black box, use black-box testing methods.

Re: This CEO is out for blood

#77

Post by [deleted] »

Alupis wrote: post #45
jbail wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're underestimating her intelligence and capabilities. Clearly she had the background and the initiative. There are super smart and dedicated people out there. She sounds like one of them. 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.

No, I was meaning I find it highly unlikely she understood or could actually implement the technology behind her patent. A 19 year old, no matter how smart, is not likely to have a thorough enough background to understand all of the related technologies involved in this patent. This is a medical device, and has to be "done right", or people can be injured or worse. I don't expect even a top-tier CS student could pull…

[deleted]

Re: This CEO is out for blood

#79

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jessaustin wrote: post #65

Holmes had then just spent the summer working in a lab at the Genome Institute in Singapore, a post she had been able to fill thanks to having learned Mandarin in her spare hours as a Houston teenager. Everyone knows that English is spoken in Singapore, right? I'm not saying Mandarin wouldn't look good on a resume, but very few Singaporeans with the education to work in that facility would not also be fluent in the i…

Heck, I work in China and mandarin is hardly required.

Re: This CEO is out for blood

#80

Post by Alupis »

jacquesm wrote: post #68
Alupis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not sure why you are attempting to make this a gender issue. If you re-read my comment, gender is not even approached. To summarize my post - I was making a statement regarding how absurd (imho) it is that someone can patent something they are not technically capable of even implementing. It is patentable because here in the US, patents are really just "ideas", so you don't have to actually implement the p…

You should not be questioning the patent based on the person but on the contents of the patent. I know some 19 year olds that would absolutely astound you with what they are capable of. One of the things this website has taught me is to completely overlook the age factor.

To implement something described in the article, it requires experience, not intelligence, nor age.

It's the experience that is in question. There is a lot of radically different and unique technologies that would be required to be mastered in order to implement a medical device such as this, safely and reliably. Not to mention extreme business prowess to wiggle ones way into a tightly guarded community such as the medical industry.

(It's likely she brought in outside help to do the actual implementation, which is normal, other commenters have noted that she came from a family with great means, which would extend her reach by a great margin).

Originally, I was commenting on it being absurd that in the US, one can patent an idea that one has no clue how to actually implement/build. Perhaps that was not the case here (although it seems to be), but unfortunately that is the case for an awful lot of patents here in the states.

Anyone can think something up -- but to actually do it... that's a whole different beast.

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