Given that they are going up against massive, automated operations like those of Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics ($9B market cap each), they'll probably need this tech to keep up.

While the thumb-prick and low sample volumes are cool, in the grand scheme of patient care they are somewhat gimmicky. Until doctors request higher-frequency testing, this doesn't pinch that hard. Still cool.

The big sign that they need to be wielding novel capabilities to compete with Quest and Labcorp is the offering of their menu at half of the medicare reimbursement rate. Each of those companies run ~40% gross margins off of medicare reimbursement, so Theranos without novel tech would be running a pretty substantial loss.