Theranos Wellness Centers Aren’t Using “Nanotainers” at This Time
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
1) Refusal to use the ground-breaking technology:
>Then I asked about what Theranos calls “nanotainers” or tiny vials that can give you test results with a single drop of blood.
>“Oh you have to order that separately,” she informed me. “We take those intravenously if you bundle a bunch of tests together.”
>[...]I then informed them I was a journalist and would like to take the test separately to test the technology. They told me I would still need to order it separately.
2) Sudden delays and bizarre excuses when you insist on using their ground-breaking technology and identify as a journalist:
> So I went to order it separately.
>That’s when things got weird. It took much longer to process this separate order at the counter. I was told it was because they had to manually type in my order on the other end.
>[...]I spoke with Chris, the Theranos manager, on the phone who informed me it was about supplies. Okay, but the people with the supplies to administer [the] test thought I could take it until management said they could not that day.
3) Extreme concern with following a central PR script when people ask questions:
>Then I walked myself back to the testing center and could overhear one of the women on the phone with management in a panicked voice telling them I was a journalist doing an investigative piece (I wasn’t, just curious as to how it worked).
4) Scouts that are instructed to alert central command whenever people start asking questions (edit: especially when that was during a patient consultation):
>I reached out to Theranos head of communications Brooke Buchanan for an explanation as well. She’d already been informed I was in the store today.
5) Insistence that you check only specific cases of their product:
> I was asked why I chose not to go to the Theranos main office in Palo Alto for a test instead [of the Walgreen's location the author went to].
Also -- just a personal observation -- the use of the phrase "at this time" strongly correlates with how badly someone wants you to stop asking questions (police officers citing you, HR employees with bad news, PR spokespeople in a bind, etc).
That's a HIPPA violation.[1]
The article author asks others to write to her about their experiences with Theranos "nanotainer" tests.
[1] https://www.hipaa.com/the-reality-of-hipaa-violations-and-en...
I'm not saying they were automatically relaying name/job/tests-requested of everyone coming in. I was just bringing that up as the level of "need to know" that the hierarchy would need to have in order to automatically have access to the key details in the story.
Second, I agree that the conversation with the manager is fair game (or at least, not a HIPAA violation) to relay to the head of communications.
Nevertheless, look what happened: the HoC (Buchanan) was pre-emptively given at least the information that Buhr went to the clinic (not simply that she spoke to a manager). That is itself borderline.
But Buchanan was probably also informed that she asked about the specific test in question. That sounds very much like a HIPAA violation, just as it would be if you released to the Quest Labs head of PR that so-and-so asked for an HIV test.
None of this interaction really screams shady to me, just defensive actions by a company facing shitty PR. Some crap went down, and they're pulling back all their feelers and trying to maintain some degree of control.
The REAL shady parts of Theranos is all their other shit with their dealings with the FDA, the questionable effectiveness of their testing, their insane board of directors, and the what not.
All this piece shows is the Theranos is panicking (and panicking has nothing to do with how above board you are).
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but in a negative PR storm, isn't it a godsend when people (especially journalists) are actually trying out your product for themselves rather than joining the bandwagon based on innuendo? Why would they be turning away people from trying the one technology they (still) hype the heck out of on their website?
And why would the communications director be getting names of patients (point 4)? Passing private medical information over to a PR agent is really shady and an abuse of trust.
The other points don't especially surprise me either. They seem mostly like either just a cautious response to learning she's a reporter or even standard practice. Many above-board companies who are cautious about their press presence train their employees not to talk to reporters, or to be careful around them, and to report them to the company's PR team.
Reporters don't get everything right, and some have an axe to grind and will twist details to suit their narrative. It's normal for companies to attempt to control their interaction with them.
This strikes me as a cautious response and doesn't even seem especially paranoid to me, or only a little. They have taken really bad press recently and it's not unusual for their employees to have been told by this point to be careful around reporters and to notify headquarters.
Unfortunately the piece does not include a detail that it would have been really useful to know, which is what happens if you walk in and order the one test that can be conducted with a finger prick - would they use their test or not? The difficulty ordering the test that occurred when she asked could have been affected by the fact that she had told him she was a reporter, and the employees freaked out a bit. Those were low level employees who had presumably not been trained on how to interact with the press, but knew about their company's bad situation. I would not recommend reading too much into it.
Plus the reporter almost certainly got Theranos' hackles up by communicating with them and receiving an invitation to have a test done, and then going behind their back to do it anonymously at another center. I won't say that it's unethical for him to have done that, but it's definitely an aggressive action or will seem so to Theranos.
Note what followed in point 2 (and what I should have added on 1 but for being too repetitive): when you do ask for just that test, suddenly it's not available!
>Unfortunately the piece does not include a detail that it would have been really useful to know, which is what happens if you walk in and order the one test that can be conducted with a finger prick - would they use their test or not? The difficulty ordering the test that occurred when she asked could have been affected by the fact that she had told him she was a reporter,
I think it's just as important to reveal that bit: that whether they use the top-secret tech might depend on whether you're a skeptic or otherwise not a sympathetic party.
>Plus the reporter almost certainly got Theranos' hackles up by communicating with them and receiving an invitation to have a test done, and then going behind their back to do it anonymously at another center. I won't say that it's unethical for him to have done that, but it's definitely an aggressive action or will seem so to Theranos.
In my book, "a company that is upset that you tested a sample offered to the general public rather than one they cherry-picked for you" is a shady company.
There are other companies that offer something somewhat similar (e.g. AnyLabTestNow), but the experience still sucks - locations/times are nowhere near as convenient as your local drug store, and the tests are expensive. I don't know how much Theranos' price reduction is dependent on its nanotainer tech, but if someone came in and offered an affordable service like CVS's minute clinics, but for tests, I'd use it, even if they had to do normal draws.
Unless, it is radically new technology... I'm curious on the value proposition here.
That said, Theranos is still on the hook because a business model innovation would probably not justify their valuation and PR compared to a tech innovation.
You have to remember that Delhi easily exceeds 115 degrees fahrenheit in summer. this gel is supposed to stabilize the blood for upto 48 hours and it is shipped across the country to Mumbai where there is this massive test lab which does all the tests I have paid for.
It is all about the money, no other concern. The same as it is illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey "because safety". It would be a valid concern unless every other place in the world had already shown it isn't one.
For some reason, it is considered impolite in American politics to consider other places' experience.
Not a synthetic hormone, actual bits of ground up pig thyroid.
Here's one UK doctor who rejects the current science around thyroid function:
http://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Thyroid_-_the_correct_prescribing...
And she mentions another doctor: Dr Kenneth Blanchard
Neither of these doctors can work for the NHS. They have to work privately.
So, explain how "it's all about money" here? Who makes money by preventing her from taking NHS patients and mis-prescribing them thyroxine?
If you pooe around her site you see she'll happily point you toward providers of blood tests, and she'll interpret the results for you, and on the back of her interpretation she'll sell you some bullshit "miracle minerals mix" to cure anything.
I would suggest it is a basic civil liberty to be allowed to know about the nature of the blood pumping through your own veins.
I don't understand your logic - it's equivalent, e.g. To making me convince a financial advisor about any transaction I want to make, and pay him for the privilege of sending the order to the broker instead of me. It will equally help some people who have no idea or business doing what they do - and is totally incompatible with western ideals and practices.
BTW, It is a huge shock to me that I cannot buy contact lenses without a prescription in USA. Seriously ?
The fact that they keep acting all shady doesn't bode well for their efforts to claim that the current criticism against their product and leadership is inaccurate or unfair.
Most of the time, the only lab work I trust Walgreens with is a cholesterol test and a flu shot... If they can actually deliver the former without some complicated extra option or cost, then it's a no-brainer that it should be the default, not some hidden option that almost no one knows about.
Definitely an advertising / customer education epic fail.
Especially if you've seen their public press appearances.
I showed up and they already had the order. I was advised that my insurance probably would not be accepted, but the total cost for a CBC, Lipid Panel, and 2 other blood tests was $42 cash so no insurance coverage was STILL cheaper than my covered labs.
To draw the blood, a near-painless prick of my finger was used to fill I believe 2 nanotainers. A few days later, the results were sent to my PCP (though for some reason never to me).
The entire process was (nearly) painless, extremely affordable, and convenient.
I can't speak beyond my personal experience to the broader allegations, but I have to say that the vibe I got from the whole experience is that the innovation is real. Cheap tests I can order directly that are quicker to take and nearly pain-free? Yes, please!
But based on mixed signals in the media, there is now an open question on whether the test results are in fact accurate.
Also, although the company responded publicly to the allegations[1], for some reason the pitchforks haven't gone away. It also does seem like the transparency has left a little to be desired. Maybe this would spill key trade secrets?
Sadly, given all the media confusion, I don't feel I can trust the results of a Theranos test anymore, but that's mostly because of all the media noise, and nothing to do with my experience itself. Hopefully, they can find a way to restore confidence in the service. If it delivers on the promise, it would be transformative.
[1] https://www.theranos.com/news/posts/custom/theranos-facts
[1] http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cclm.2015.53.issue-7/cclm-20...
Were yours?
In the current debacle, you again have all the classic ingredients in force: pride goeth before a fall, the extreme secrecy, the aristocracy > meritocracy, venture capitalists all wearing the VC equivalent of beer-goggles, the ignorance and laziness of tech media exposed. You even have a co-inventor who committed suicide and, for no obvious reason, Henry Kissinger is just hanging out.
The fact that Theranos aimed so high in its disruptive mission has come to bite it a bit...it's one thing to butt heads against government regulations when just making it easier for people to catch a ride or sleep on a couch. A lot different when you're allegedly subverting regulations explicitly constructed around human health.
Basically, there's popcorn for everyone.
I had to look this up -- I guess you're referring to Ian Gibbons?
>>In 2005, Ms. Holmes hired Ian Gibbons, a British biochemist who had researched systems to handle and process tiny quantities of fluids. His collaboration with other Theranos scientists produced 23 patents, according to records filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Ms. Holmes is listed as a co-inventor on 19 of the patents.
>>The patents show how Ms. Holmes’s original idea morphed into the company’s business model. But progress was slow. Dr. Gibbons “told me nothing was working,” says his widow, Rochelle.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-has-struggled-with-bloo...
Like Theranos, the story is coming apart at the seams... I haven't seen this discussed here but UBeam is quietly raising another round via some Israeli equity crowdfunding site. Crazy!!! This after raising Series A from a16z!
Will be interesting to see how many of these unicorn type startups are around this time next year.
Here was a company that popped up, literally out of nowhere, claiming to have a handle on microfluidic diagnostic assays...something that the major players in the industry haven't been able to get off the ground since ELISA came along in the 1960s.
The skeptics were quiet at first. I mean shit, they landed Walgreen's and Kroeger! It must work, right?
Now we discover a little more of the truth and it's a lot safer to say "put up or shut up".
Imagine if a search company like Google had been founded 11 years ago, and claims to have revolutionized web search, but then a reporter exposed that they don't actually use any of their own search technology at all (!), and instead they pay to license Microsoft's search technology Bing instead (!). And a major industry regulator has claimed they're operating outside regulation (FDA in this case for Theranos). When challenged about whether their technology works, they respond with what amounts to hot air and empty claims. That's where Theranos is right now.
I was inclined to side with Theranos initially, since I've seen my own share of reporting hit-pieces where my insider knowledge made it clear the reporting was highly biased and essentially nothing but an all-out attack on the company. However, my opinion of them has been turning toward skepticism since I've seen them respond to criticism in a secretive way and by failing to substantiate their claims about their product. The cynical part of me is beginning to believe that Theranos is refusing to share real details because the data doesn't look good for them.
If Theranos has not developed any commercially viable breakthrough technology for fingertip blood draws, and will continue to operate indefinitely by conducting regular venous draws using other firms' equipment, then their investment value cannot be sustained, because that's a substantially weaker business model, and different than what was claimed. Selling fingertip testing on breakthrough technology would make them highly differentiated (unique, only ones to do it), whereas reselling other firms' venous draw technology is minimally differentiated (they'd just be a lab, same as any other).
Hacker News is a forum of entrepreneurial and hacker-minded folks, and I think we're all worried about what it means for that sector of the industry, or the tech industry as a whole, if the company turns out to have been a sham. It would not be good for Silicon Valley if Theranos turns out to be anything close to a Ponzi scheme. If in the end it's discovered that Theranos' technology does not work, that's how they may be viewed. It's an interesting story that concerns people.
Theranos has nothing to do with the tech industry. Recent concerns in the tech industry regarding valuations have to do with the viability of business models, not the viability of technology. No one's questioning whether Uber's technology is feasible - they're interested in things like the unit economics and other factors that impact long-term profitability.
> It would not be good for Silicon Valley if Theranos turns out to be anything close to a Ponzi scheme.
Ponzi schemes are a specific type of fraud involving unsustainable recursive financing. If there's any impropriety at Theranos, that would probably be (another type of) fraud.
Is Theranos holding open tryouts for their PR department or something?
Theranos is catching a lot of flak right now because they claim to be a company founded on this awesome new technology, but they seem to be use existing technologies for all the services they currently offer, they won't show people their wonder-device, and the story of the way the company was initially funded and valued keeps getting sketchier.
Is Theranos using existing technologies and still not providing value above the incumbents? This is what I really want to know. I just don't know.
If Theranos is not using their fingerprick blood testing technology, then they are not using their technology commercially at all. So if this is true, then they're a company that's been in business 11 years, has a massive valuation, and has not developed a commercially viable technology yet. It's as if a web search company like Google had been around 11 years, was worth >$1 billion, and then was found to be exclusively using and rebranding Microsoft's search technology instead. It's a scandal.
Theranos' valuation cannot be sustained anywhere near its current value simply by selling blood tests conducted on equipment manufactured by other firms. Theranos' claim to fame is a breakthrough in fingertip-prick blood testing technology, and they have no way to differentiate themselves in the market without this breakthrough technology - their investment value cannot be sustained simply by reselling technology made by other firms.
A better comparison would be if Uber had claimed they had self-driving car before they'd even entered the market, had started doing rides, and then it turned out Lyft drivers were surreptitiously hidden inside the front of the car and were actually driving instead of the mystical self-driving computer.
That's how it looks at the moment with the way Theranos is behaving.
Theranos, the company, has claimed to be building an amazing new testing system. They're not just about getting blood test centers set up in grocery stores, they're very specifically all about a new technology that gives consumers access to a lot of tests all at once, from a pin-prick blood sample. Not an old-style blood sample from a vein, and not this piecemeal "we mostly use the current equipment, but then we can also use our own" weirdness.
The business was "fancy new tech, disrupting health care," not "we'll take blood from your vein in a grocery store".
If you're going to try and say, well, ok, but maybe they're just pivoting to using standard equipment but now it's in a grocery store, I guess you could say that...
Her pedigree, looks, family $$, being a Stanford dropout, blonde haircut, blue eyes, Steve Jobs drag and surfer voice (she took vocal coaching to deepen her voice to sound more like a leader) all combined as tantalizing catnip to the press. Theranos knew this and purposely stirred up a media storm focusing singularly on Holmes, NOT on the technology. Almost like it was constructed like a sleight of hand so everyone would be distracted by the cult of personality around the pretty blonde founder and ignore their lack of peer reviewed research that their testing methods actually worked.
If u goto their website a lot of the media and copy is very founder-specific. Almost like they are trying to build some cult of personality around her.
2. In the health space, being trustworthy is kinda important.
Their initial value proposition was not that they would simply open blood collection sites in pharmacies or supermarkets. That could have been a serviceable proposition had it been theirs, but it wouldn't have justified their huge valuation. Their valuation is based on the idea that they would be able to do most blood tests from a drop of blood, collected from a pinprick. They have failed to accomplish this.
I hope that clears things up for you.
Are they promising a product that they aren't delivering?
Sorry, I know I'm being difficult here, I would really love to chat with someone who is very invested either for or against, or both, this approach, so that I can understand better.
Seriously, if you, or you know anyone who has time to chat about this, send me an email. I don't intend to be as contrarian as I know I appear to be (and probably am being) here.
I really care, and just for purely reasons of curiosity. Anyways, ping me if we can chat.
In regards to the rest of your comment (as well as your other posts littering this thread), your not being difficult as so much as lazy :P
A quick Google search and 15 mins of reading will catch you up to speed about Theranos and all the (negative) attention they are currently receiving in the press. Start with the series of recent WSJ articles about Theranos.
If it is, and Theranos feels this "new" value proposition is enough to justify their valuation, I'm not sure what they're smoking, but I would sure like some!