Medical shame: Woman inventor’s blood test start-up fake

Washington: Theranos, a twelve-year-old high-value start-up which claims it has revolutionised blood sample-based diagnosis, has hit trouble over “grandiose claims”.

 

This week, a Wall Street Journal expose has claimed blood tests carried out by the company rely on existing technology, including old tech made by Siemens and that the results are far from perfect. The Journal has added that the United States’ FDA has now asked the company to halt all tests except one, making the “hot startup” function like any other ordinary diagnostics lab. 

 

Under the scanner is Theranos’ advertising - which promised cheap, pain-free, series of 240 tests — ranging from cholestrol to cancer detection just from a few drops of blood from fingertips. Experts say the science behind Theranos’ tech — including its trademark Nanotainer — is deficient and that much of its methodology is not peer-reviewed. 

 

The FDA has also ruled that the Nanotainer, the trademarked vial which holds the blood samples, is an “unapproved medical device”. 

 

The company was founded in the dorm room of Elizabeth Holmes who then at 19, pushed in her tuition money to prop up Theranos. The health firm then swiftly raised funds and now in 2015, is sitting atop a valuation of $9 billion. But Holmes — who claims she started Theranos due to her fear of needles — has spent much of last week fighting damage, claiming her company’s tech apparatus, which uses a machine called Edison, is indeed radical. 

 

The Journal had reported that the much-touted testing machine has now been relegated to carry out just 15 tests (as of 2014 end) and that much of the testing was now relying on ordinary, purchased diagnostic devices.

 

Threatening to burst the bubble of excitement around Theranos is another development in which the company is believed to have dialled down its earlier pitch. The Journal notes that literature on its website has “dropped a reference to collecting usually only three tiny micro-vials' per sample instead of the usual six large ones”.