Theranos To Shut Down Its Blood-Testing Facilities, Shrink Workforce By 40% (wsj.com)

tripleevenfall quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Theranos Inc. said it will shut down its blood-testing facilities and shrink its workforce by more than 40% (Warning: may be paywalled; alternate source). The company said it had 790 full-time employees as of August 1. The moves mark a dramatic retreat by the Palo Alto, Calif., company and founder Elizabeth Holmes from their core strategy of offering a long menu of low-price blood tests directly to consumers. Those ambitions already were endangered by crippling regulatory sanctions that followed revelations by The Wall Street Journal of shortcomings in Theranos's technology and operations. Theranos later voided all results from its proprietary device for 2014 and 2015, though the company said it wasn't aware of any patient harm resulting form its tests. Ms. Holmes said in a statement: "We will return our undivided attention to our miniLab platform. Our ultimate goal is to commercialize miniaturized, automated laboratories capable of small-volume sample testing, with an emphasis on vulnerable patient populations, including oncology, pediatrics, and intensive care."

Comments

Heh heh heh

[Anonymous Coward]

with an emphasis on vulnerable patient populations

With an emphasis on easy to scam patient populations?

OMG She's still CEO!!!??

[Anonymous Coward]

Ms. Holmes said in a statement: "We will return our undivided attention to our miniLab platform. Our ultimate goal is to commercialize miniaturized, automated laboratories capable of small-volume sample testing, with an emphasis on vulnerable patient populations, including oncology, pediatrics, and intensive care."

What the fuck is Holmes still CEO? http://www.zerohedge.com/news/... http://www.vanityfair.com/news...

What the fuck is wrong with investors? Well like you and me we have no say what we "invest" in. Instead banks and insurance fund managers decide for us. It's not their money. They don't care. You probably have some of your savings indirectly invested in Teranos and don't even know it, and even if you do too much work to withdraw it and transfer it to an equally incompetent fund across the street. So this shit keeps happening.

Re:OMG She's still CEO!!!??

[kuzb]

More than that, how is she not in jail for criminal negligence?

Re:OMG She's still CEO!!!??

[Anonymous Coward]

Because capitalism rewards people who want to make money. Honesty is a tool, not a goal, and sometimes it's not the right tool for the job.

Re:OMG She's still CEO!!!??

[tripleevenfall]

Yes, when your lab company has vacated its results, had to close all its labs, and you personally are banned by the FDA from operating or managing a lab, I'd say it might be time for investors to look at their options.

Re:OMG She's still CEO!!!??

[schnell]

Why the fuck is Holmes still CEO? What the fuck is wrong with investors?

There's a pretty simple answer to that. Like Brin and Page at Google, or Zuckerberg at Facebook, she owns all the voting shares.

Not all shares in a public or even private company are created equal. You can create different classes of shares where you still own a piece of the company, but voting rights are different. I could start a company and create 100 shares that get one vote each and sell those, but retain 10 shares of a special class that get to cast 100 votes each, thereby retaining control of the company, even if I only own 9% of the company and its profits.

These arrangements are hardly uncommon, especially among tech startups (see Google and Facebook). These facts are disclosed to investors and it's up to them to decide whether they trust the founders/executives/etc. with the voting shares enough to still invest in the company anyway even though they don't get to call the shots proportionally by voting their shares.

not aware of patient harm?

[Razed By TV]

Theranos later voided all results from its proprietary device for 2014 and 2015, though the company said it wasn't aware of any patient harm resulting form its tests.

They're just about inviting lawsuits with that gem. I hadn't thought about the patient harm aspect until I read that quote, only the fraud aspect. Once people realize that their misdiagnosis stemming from a false test result is what landed them in the hospital or prevented treatment of a disease, Theranos won't even need a clean up crew.

Re:not aware of patient harm?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is more than that: They were also used for DNA evidence. I'm sure lawyers could drum up the wasted time caused by incorrect facts being provided as true facts would constitute harm - it certainly is a loss for the client. Have all clients been refunded? I believe otherwise there would be monetary harm. How about their loss of time - both for the original diagnosis, and further diagnosis's, and court costs and time to be compensated? Time is money, after all...

So a company worth billions

[rsilvergun]

had less than 800 employees? This is why the .com bubble isn't bursting this time. The valuations are all paper. Nothing's really being lost and the "losses" become massive tax breaks for the "investors". This'll get somebody (probably several somebodies) out of paying taxes for the next 20 years.

Re:office

[hey!]

Well, according to the headline soon you'll drive by and see the same thing, only they'll be about 42 inches tall.

Useful, but not very accurate...

[FrankSchwab]

I loved being able to go to Walgreens, walk into the Theranos booth, and get a $10 B12 test without a prescription. Let me do all kinds of analysis that the standard physicians approach didn't.

But, with weekly B12 readings over the space of two months, there was 1 of the 8 readings that was obviously wrong. As an engineer, I'm used to noisy data so was still able to find the data useful.

Last month, went to Theranos (to one of their blood testing centers, as Walgreens had shut them down by then) and had another done. Another obviously, completely incorrect reading, confirmed by a doctor-ordered test at another lab.

So, even though I love the control they gave me (I could order any of a hundred tests on my own without having to convince my doctor to order it, or my insurance company to pay for it), I think it's best that they go away. Too much of modern medicine is conditioned on the results of a single, unverified test - the assumption is that the lab doesn't have an error rate. At least in my apocryphal case, Theranos grossly failed.

I'll go back to the fantasy land where the other, more traditional labs (that want to charge me $150 for the same B12 test) always have correct readings...

Re:Useful, but not very accurate...

[bytesex]

What she wants is obviously very desirable and, eventually, possible. She's just a bit early (and perhaps made one too many fantastically overblown claim).

Re:Useful, but not very accurate...

[goose-incarnated]

As an engineer, I'm used to noisy data so was still able to find the data useful.

[...]

Another obviously, completely incorrect reading, confirmed by a doctor-ordered test at another lab.

As a scientist (working with lots of engineers), I respectfully disagree that you are finding the data useful. You are only discarding the obviously incorrect values while keeping the non-obviously incorrect values. IOW, without a control you don't know which of the values (within the range you consider "valid") are correct and which are not.

Re:Useful, but not very accurate...

[FrankSchwab]

To be pedantic, I am certainly finding the data useful, as I am certainly using it. Whether the data is accurate/correct or not, I agree that I have no way to tell. I'm making the assumption that there is some reasonable level of accuracy to be expected from their testing (B12 doesn't use their Edison machines), and getting an expected smooth curve out of most of the independent trials implies some level of process control and precision, but the outliers suggest that individual measurements are suspect.

Of course, it's unclear how I'd get a "control" for this test. I could go to another blood analysis lab - but everytime I've had blood drawn in the last decade, the vials get drawn at a storefront "lab", then packaged up and processed at a backend lab somewhere else. It's not clear to me how to tell whether all the storefronts use a common backend lab, or which storefronts use which labs. A "control" could turn out to be verification of a lab's results by the same lab.

Let's just hope it isn't a "class action" lawsuit

[NotQuiteReal]

All the checks I have ever received from class action lawsuits, by not opting "out", resulted in checks for less than a dollar. (or a coupon or something of similar trivial worth...)

And, I rarely "opt in" to an invitation, since I rarely feel like I was wronged (like "did you buy such-and-such a stock in 2003?"). The most lucrative "opt-in" was for a car company who overcharged on lease return "damage", and I thought "yeah, they did charge a lot for that door ding". I got $400-ish.

The last check out-of-the-blue, was from AT&T Mobile, for something like "they charged too much tax"; I got a check the other day for $0.02. (Of course, I have long since switched to another carrier, for half the price, and everyone in my family has made use of the free international roaming feature),

2 Cents? Really? Thank you, lawyers. I am sure you made more than 2 cents. To be fair, I got twice as much as my father-in-law. He got $0.01. The paper industry, the USPS, and many others got more than 2 cents to create and deliver my check. (Don't worry, I recycle paper... even thought that might cost more than it's worth...)

BTW: I am NOT going to cash the check, it goes in the collection of other checks that are too retarded for words.

Inner Space

[wonkey_monkey]

Theranos To Shut Down Its Blood-Testing Facilities, Shrink Workforce By 40%

So the blood test thing didn't work out, but they've got that revolutionary employee shrinking technology to fall back on!

Re:Inner Space

[Ol Olsoc]

Theranos To Shut Down Its Blood-Testing Facilities, Shrink Workforce By 40%

So the blood test thing didn't work out, but they've got that revolutionary employee shrinking technology to fall back on!

I understand they are changing their name to Thanatos as well