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.

Comments

Anything to disrupt Quest Diagnostics

[tompaulco]

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.

Re:Anything to disrupt Quest Diagnostics

[whoever57]

Let's be realistic here: medical insurance in the USA is a rip-off. Unfortunately, it's also necessary.

I suspect that those co-pays are in many cases all the the provider actually gets. In other words, my company and I pay something north of $20k/year for what is mostly a glorified discount program.

What happens is that the provider bills some amount (say $100 for example), the patient pays a 10% copay and then the total bill is discounted by 90%, so the insurance company actually pays zero. There is a bonus for the providers: they get the full cut from patients who have not met their annual deductible.

I wonder if some of the arrangements are legal: when I phone one medical provider for a discount on a $600 bill for an office visit, I was told that they had an agreement with the insurance company so they could not discount. In other words, two companies agree that a third party cannot get discounts: sounds like something that an anti-trust regulator should investigator should look into.

There was another insult following that conversation when I asked for a discount: my entire bill was sent to a debt collector, including some items for which I had not received the bill. Scum. I paid the debt collector instead of the medical practice on the basis that the medical practice that did this would get less money out of the deal

Everything about Theranos is lol

[hsmith]

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.

Re:Argle Bargle Morble Whoosh?

[rwyoder]

The board is really absurdly packed with political heavyweights though, to the point where it tips over from looking like "impressive board" to weird and kind of suspicious. I mean one of their directors is Henry Kissinger. Not just someone with the same name, either, the Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon's Secretary of State who is now 91 years old.

No kidding! When I was reading a recent article, Theranos sound almost too good to be true, but when I read who was on the board, warning bells went off. What the hell do a bunch of political and military people know about medicine???
Here is a link to the Board of Directors. Click on the name of each to get a page about their background: http://www.bloomberg.com/resea...

Re:Argle Bargle Morble Whoosh?

[postbigbang]

A heavyweight board represents market diffusion. Think of what this might mean for military field operations, battlefield hospitals, trauma units, insurance companies and co-insurers, the financial people behind all of these.

Should the device actually work as described, and become evolved, and its patent lives can be extended, it's both a diagnostic miracle, and a forensic examiner's best friend.

So, like many other ostensible miracles-in-the-making, a heavyweight board gets to snack on the profits. And maybe purchasers get the rapid diagnostics they need for accurate care plans. Maybe. Maybe. That the process is opaque means that there is much patent and IP law to be considered, too.