[BostonCard]

I was always skeptical that a college dropout could invent something that several blood testing companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do. My Silicon Valley friends in the venture community were always extremely wary of her (and indeed, as Vanity Fair notes, almost none of the investment in Theranos was Valley money) because of how secretive and too-good-to-be-true it seemed. Given the insane things that venture money chases, it was always very telling that little money was directed there.

One could also have been skeptical that a college dropout could invent something (an easy to use personal computer) that several enterprise computing companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do.  But Steve Jobs did.
One could also have been skeptical that a college dropout could invent something (an operating system for personal computer) that several enterprise computing companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do.  But Bill Gates did.
One could also have been skeptical that a college dropout could invent something (a direct sales model for personal computers) that several computer companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do.  But Michael Dell did.
One could also have been skeptical that a college dropout could invent something (an online distribution system for music) that several music publishers that devote hundreds of dollars to R&D could not do. But Shawn Fanning did.
One could also have been skeptical that a college dropout could invent something (an enterprise database management system) that several enterprise software companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do.  But Larry Ellison did.

OK, maybe not all of the competitors devote hundreds of millions of dollars to something, but there is plenty of precedent of someone thinking  up something new that others had not thought of.  I suspect diagnostics companies have not devoted much of their R&D budget to reducing the cost of blood tests because there is little incentive for it.  I would imagine that most of the money in diagnostics is in developing new assays, not finding a way to make the existing assays cheaper or hurt less.  Patients don't decide what tests they are going to get, and by and large they don't directly pay for it.

In theory, there is no reason why our current diagnostics require the volume of blood that is drawn, or why a smaller sample wouldn't work.  Handling and analysis of smaller volumes is an engineering problem, so there is no reason why Theranos couldn't work.  The problem, of course, is that it is a tricky engineering problem, especially because blood is prone to doing all sorts of things, like clotting, that you might not want it to do (depending on the test).

BC

[BostonCard]

I was always skeptical that a college dropout could invent something that several blood testing companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do. My Silicon Valley friends in the venture community were always extremely wary of her (and indeed, as Vanity Fair notes, almost none of the investment in Theranos was Valley money) because of how secretive and too-good-to-be-true it seemed. Given the insane things that venture money chases, it was always very telling that little money was directed there.

One could also have been skeptical that a college dropout could invent something (an easy to use personal computer) that several enterprise computing companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do.  But Steve Jobs did.
One could also have been skeptical that a college dropout could invent something (an operating system for personal computer) that several enterprise computing companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do.  But Bill Gates did.
One could also have been skeptical that a college dropout could invent something (a direct sales model for personal computers) that several computer companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do.  But Michael Dell did.
One could also have been skeptical that a college dropout could invent something (an online distribution system for music) that several music publishers that devote hundreds of dollars to R&D could not do. But Shawn Fanning did.
One could also have been skeptical that a college dropout could invent something (an enterprise database management system) that several enterprise software companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do.  But Larry Ellison did.

OK, maybe not all of the competitors devote hundreds of millions of dollars to something, but there is plenty of precedent of someone thinking  up something new that others had not thought of.  I suspect diagnostics companies have not devoted much of their R&D budget to reducing the cost of blood tests because there is little incentive for it.  I would imagine that most of the money in diagnostics is in developing new assays, not finding a way to make the existing assays cheaper or hurt less.  Patients don't decide what tests they are going to get, and by and large they don't directly pay for it.

In theory, there is no reason why our current diagnostics require the volume of blood that is drawn, or why a smaller sample wouldn't work.  Handling and analysis of smaller volumes is an engineering problem, so there is no reason why Theranos couldn't work.  The problem, of course, is that it is a tricky engineering problem, especially because blood is prone to doing all sorts of things, like clotting, that you might not want it to do (depending on the test).

BC