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Disruptive Bloodwork Startup May Offer Mostly Vaporware
dmr001 writes: As seen previously, Palo Alto startup Theranos planned to put the power of affordable lab work directly in the hands of patients with tiny fingerprick samples taken at Walgreen's, with four hour turnaround. The company claimed their tests were "made possible by advances in the field of microfluidics." But they were cagey about methodology and didn't use FDA approved analyzers.
Now, the Wall Street Journal reports (paywalled) (among others) that all but one of Theranos' analyzers currently in use is off the shelf, and that their tiny samples may not always have been accurate. Typically cagey founder Elizabeth Holmes vigorously disputes the criticism of her $9 billion startup, but entrenched players like Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp (which do quite well charging orders of magnitude above Theranos' prices) are likely doing a happy dance.
Physicians worrying about patients bringing in their own carcinoembryonic antigen levels and Epstein Barr Virus panels to confirm their Internet diagnoses of cancer and chronic fatigue may also be breathing sighs of relief, albeit with bittersweet regret at the potential loss of the price advantage and milliliter samples.
Now, the Wall Street Journal reports (paywalled) (among others) that all but one of Theranos' analyzers currently in use is off the shelf, and that their tiny samples may not always have been accurate. Typically cagey founder Elizabeth Holmes vigorously disputes the criticism of her $9 billion startup, but entrenched players like Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp (which do quite well charging orders of magnitude above Theranos' prices) are likely doing a happy dance.
Physicians worrying about patients bringing in their own carcinoembryonic antigen levels and Epstein Barr Virus panels to confirm their Internet diagnoses of cancer and chronic fatigue may also be breathing sighs of relief, albeit with bittersweet regret at the potential loss of the price advantage and milliliter samples.
that all but one of Theranos' analyzers currently in use is off the shelf,
What. Wait.... Is it supposed to be on the shelf? Is there something missing?
TFA in Business Insider just complained about the membership of the Board of Directors (which is weird).
And finally, ** 10 billion dollars ** for a startup that does essentially the same thing as everybody else but maybe undercuts price and probably violates the law in 45 states?
I'm in the wrong business.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Further proof that, far more often than not, "disruptive" means ignoring the law for as long as humanly possible while hoping that your competitors can't (or won't) follow suit.
I can't wait for "disruptive" medicine as practiced by anyone with internet access and a hyperlink to WebMD.
Anything to disrupt Quest Diagnostics. I wouldn't use this new outfit because they sound sort of shady, but I won't do business with Quest either. Their prices are insanely high, and they always automatically bill the patient first instead of billing the insurance because they know the insurance will adjust it down to a contracted reasonable price. I have had to spend thousands of dollars of my time on the phone with this company just to get them to bill the insurance company. They have threatened me with debt collection over a debt which I would have happily paid if only they would submit it to the insurance company so I knew how much I actually owed. I certainly didn't owe them the full amount they stated. I have repeatedly told doctors not not to send my bloodwork to Quest, but I guess they are a monopoly or the doctors get kickbacks because they always send the bloodwork to them, without first getting signoff from you about which tests will be performed or getting agreement to pay from you.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Even the best testing panels have only found markers for CFS in a statistical manner.
That is - you take a hundred people with CFS, a hundred people without CFS, and you can with certainty tell which group is which.
However, you can't with any useful result test a single individual.
The false positive rate is 45%, and the false negative rate is 45% or so.
CFS is not one disease, it is almost certainly many.
I got a test from Labcorp via one of those shady online doctors. They price was cheaper than my copay if I used my insurance. Apparently the negotiated cash discount is huge.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
But I'd rather trust 10B of funding than an article on the WSJ that could very well be a public opinion bomb from the highly influent big pharma lobby. My two cents
CEO Elizabeth Holmes is fucking gorgeous!
Unfortunately, she sounds like a man.
Hottest. Vader. Impression. Ever.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
The minute you have a backup plan, you've admitted you're not going to succeed." -Elizabeth Holmes
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
How on earth did it become *so* expensive? This is not a problem in other countries, where pathology is an order of magnitude cheaper than the US. And it is paid for by governments which makes it free to patients in other western countries (certainly here in oz). And no, that does not kill the national budget -- detecting issues early with pathology often saves the government money.
I'm not seeing anything suggesting that their service is unreasonably error prone, just a bunch of complaints about how the ratio of medical professionals on their board "doesn't fit" with that of other multinational medical corporations. And even if their testing is not perfect widespread and cheap blood testing could still be of significant use. Even if you come back positive with some serious illness via an expensive test you should be retested to ensure that there wasn't a mix-up, same thing goes with cheap tests. False negative results are a bit more tricky but one should probably be cautious in regards to that possibility no matter what.
Silicon Valley and the media want so bad for a successful female "founder" that it hasn't gotten off its knees for this woman.
"10 years in stealth mode" is hilarious
Anyone else would have been laughed out of the room with what has come out about Theranos as of late. Claims too good to be true dreamt up by a college kid? Yep, they are probably too good to be true.
Are you sure she exists? She looks like a digital animation to me.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
idk i think you're overreacting and overexxagerating.
Hottest. Vader. Impression. Ever.
I dunno... having her shout out "I am your father!" at the wrong moment would probably leave me needing years of therapy afterward.
#DeleteChrome
Especially one that has a woman ruler.
You say insurance is a rip-off. Amen to that.
But you also say that is "necessary"... You mention following epithets: Debt collection scum, considering anti-trust regulators, calling them a glorified discount program.
Yet all of this "necessary"?
Insurance is a relatively new invention, and like, many new inventions, are not necessarily designed to defend consumers.
In medieval ages Arab medicine was considered one of the best in the world. Chinese medicine was also highly advanced. All of the medicine prior to the XX century, whether advanced or not, had one thing in common and it was pay-as-you-go-basis.
_____________________________________________________
If barbers and hairstylists were smarter, they would start their own hair cut procedure medical plan. After all, you will not start cutting hair yourself. You also need a training too.
DYI medical diagnosis is the future and it is something we need.
Before someone says "home users should never use such things because only doctors are qualified"... what about home pregnancy and blood sugar and blood pressure tests and blood alcohol tests? So saying that only doctors can give tests is asinine.
Here is what I see people doing... they take the tests to know whether they should see a doctor or not.
*drops mic and walks*
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
if you look carefully at many of her pictures, especially close-up shots, she looks like someone who wears a latex mask. Maybe it's Steve Jobs underneath, that would explain the voice and how she dresses.
lucm, indeed.
And stop replying to your own idiotic posts.
A simple explanation of how Theranos managed to line-up Walgreens is that Theranos may have offered a large discount over standard lab pricing. But if, in fact, Theranos is running most of their tests on standard (or even slightly-tweaked standard) lab analyzers, how long can Theranos afford to operate at a large discount?
Unless they really have a big technological advantage over standard labs, which I doubt, then eventually Theranos is just another standard clinical lab operator, presumably operating at standard prices, and presumably valued at standard clinical lab valuations (much lower).
Just as legal, just as much a pox on the festering ass of the economy.
TFA is just bad reporting by the WSJ repeated by the rest of the press. It is made mostly from interviews with a few ex-employees.
You can read the company's written responses here
You can also see Elisabeth's response on Cramer .
Might be nice to get more info before expressing an opinion here.
Sort of like D Waves quantum computer don't you think? 10 million a pop and it has yet to show a quantum speedup!
Yet they'll sell you one only if you sign off not to look inside it.
I just seen her on the news and she seemed anything but cagey.
I bet she and her company is everything she says it is.
I will be buying stock now.
Someone is scared of this company and I now this business as usual is doomed.
There are a ton of great startups out there that aren't using their connections and Stanford (or Harvard, or MIT) cred to generate hype and raise money. You know what? They have a very hard time raising money because the "smart money" says to invest in well connected people from Stanford, Harvard, MIT, etc.
Then this shit comes out. Well-connected wunderkind made everything up and blew a shitload of money that could have been used to fund other ideas.
Fuck Silicon Valley.
The medical industry and insurance in the US are diseases unto themselves. We don't have US medical insurance. I won't buy it. Hyped US medicine has failed my family so many times, I've learned to step into the breach to keep people alive and doing well, long after their alloted time by "std" US medicine. We do use modern technology e.g. 256 slice CT, PET, MRI, often labs more than "std". But US stuff is dramatically overpriced and over regulated, you can't get some important medicines in the US (corrupt FDA failures). Most US doctors know beans about applied natural biochemistry (e.g. theraputic essential nutrients, herbal extracts and "mega"vitamins) to stay alive and healthy with otherwise fatal states (age, cancers).
if you look carefully at many of her pictures, especially close-up shots, she looks like someone who wears a latex mask. Maybe it's Steve Jobs underneath, that would explain the voice and how she dresses.
sounds like a job for Scooby-doo
There's something about a person leading a health care company dressing like the grim reaper that just doesn't work.
Personal attacks on company's 'cagey' CEO and corporation in the first two paragraphs.
This couldn't possibly be a biased post at all.
So sick of spin and hype...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
He tried Theranos blood analysis and is not impressed.
http://www.mondaynote.com/2015...
An alternative link that actually works without Flash (at least so far):
http://finance.yahoo.com/video...
i'm staring at her TedMed discussion, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBvzKp0AERE
She cannot say two paragraphs in a row without a deceitful lie. Take the diabetes cost savings: Type 2 diabetes can be mostly treated by profound lifestyle changes. Americons won't do them, testing doesn't fix the problem, so more testing solves *nothing* for them.
Type 1 diabets, which is much roughly 20 times as rare, costs at least 20 times as much to treat. And her theories and varpor does *NOTHING* for Type 1. *NOTHING*. So her claims that it could save diabetics are full of shit.
And oh, wait "fear of needles" is like "fear of heights?"BS. Infants are scared of hights before they can crawl. Needle fear is *learned*, by people saying "poor baby, it's so scary, you're so brave, poor you!!".
Gorgeous ?!!! My right hand is better looking !
Can someone explain how this could even happen? I thought the medical industry was, if anything, over-regulated. And somehow they are using a device (or not really, I guess, since claims are they are cheating) that has not undergone peer review and which no one knows the details of its inner workings?!
I mean.. wtf? I don't even know what to say. And the "but we want to keep it secret" nonsense? Really, we let that fly? That's what patents are for.
This is unfucking acceptable. At this point given the board of that company I wouldn't even trust an FDA evaluation. It needs to be public peer review.
Modelling your look on Steve Jobs with the voice of an American Margaret Thatcher is kind of creepy.
She'd probably do better if she opted for the 'Cute but slightly evil' ways of Marissa Meyer.
Gosh you guys have cracked the case. Prove that Theranos's device actually works and you will have some powerful ammunition if they continue to go after this company.
Also amusing are all the Republicans on the board, but quick wave your hands and nobody will notice!
No she isn't, and I can't tell if that's her voice or part of her Eccentric Genius role-playing, along with the risible black turtleneck.
This whole thing is ridiculous, just fucking mind-blowing. What is the plausibility of a 19 year old student dropping out and "inventing" some magic blood testing machine? Very low. Yet people have allowed her to skate with no proof that her unlikely product actual does what she says it does.
Spectacular claims require spectacular evidence, but nobody seems to have given a shit because... turtleneck! Oh, and she's a woman so if you question her genius you probably hate women!
Nothing short of full peer review should be acceptable here.
Gorgeous ?!!! My right hand is better looking !
I concur. I was thinking: was that "fucking" as in "having intercourse with", or as in an somewhat crude adjective describing the superiority of this person's attractiveness, or meant as sarcasm? Still can't tell - maybe it's some part of the ADHD spectum acting up again. I'll pass on the first meaning, and for the second meaning allow that different societies have different standards for external beauty.
Hottest. Vader. Impression. Ever.
I dunno... having her shout out "I am your father!" at the wrong moment would probably leave me needing years of therapy afterward.
Can I change my name to "Luke" and um, suffer for science? One for the team.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
I don't think it's a she, but a he dressing as a she. Hence the turtleneck to hide the adams apple.
he spends the whole summary being FURIOUS that Quest Diagnostics and your doctor aren't being "disrupted," rather than the fact that ... this "stealth startup" seems to have pulled a billion-dollar scam on investors?
She lost me when she mangled the Ghandi quote: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
Protip to tech CEOs: Don't compare yourself to Ghandi. You sound like an ass.
For me the issue is a stainless steel pipe being jabbed into my flesh. That shit hurts! Naturally, I'm more than a bit apprehensive about repeating that experience.
Needles won't kill you. They're not unbearable, but neither is pounding your thumb with a hammer. Seeing as you're all brave and shit, I presume you're willing to let me have a whack? No "unreasonable" fear, right?
YOU say "hosts=bad" (but they add security, speed, & reliability) & bitch on admin privelege to UPDATE vs. threats:
"So, have you figured out why privilege escalation is a bad thing yet?" - by Coren22 on Tuesday September 22, 2015 @05:15PM (#50577809)
Hypocrite - You use admin priv admitting it
&
How else can I programmatically update hosts minus it in Windows?
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"Of course it requires elevation to write to the hosts file" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @05:35PM (#50585879)
You FINALLY later admit there's no other way!
FACT:
Even MalwareBytes AntiMalware (best one) DEMANDS you use admin privelege (you saying it's "bad" too?) it can't do its job fully otherwise, like many security tools do!
---
Aryeh Goretsky NOD32/ESET says hosts = good security-> http://it.slashdot.org/comment...
Oliver Day (Symantec) does-> http://www.securityfocus.com/c...
MalwareBytes' hpHosts hosts & recommends my APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit-> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl...
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* HOW MANY SECURITY PROS DO I NEED TO KNOCK THE CHOCOLATE OUTTA YOU?
---
Those security pros INCLUDE me: I work w/ guys from malwarebytes' hpHosts on a regular basis!
I've professionally worked for decades as a combined domain-wide network admin & software engineer since 1994 (Even showing you HOW to migrate a hosts across an enterprise-> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... )
I've also been securing computers + WRITING GUIDES using CIS Tool (who took fixes from me http://slashdot.org/comments.p... - bonus) http://www.bing.com/search?q=%...
You told me you learn from guides?
I write good ones that MILLIONS USE & was PAID FOR IT http://pcpitstop.com/news/winn...
+ WARES TO PROTECT USERS that are endorsed & hosted by security pros -> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl...
You did all that? No!
(& that's ONLY a SMALL part of what I could put out)
APK
P.S.=> You're all TALK -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... & a "ne'er-do-well" as far as security...apk