Theranos - revolutionising blood diagnostics...really?
HEALTH & MEDICINE
Update on 18th Nov. 2015
On 16th October 2015, an article in the Wall Street Journal raised serious questions on the credibility of the Theranos' business claims. The title of the article 'Hot startup Theranos has struggled with its blood-test technology. Silicon valley lab, led by Elizabeth Holmes, is valued at $9 billion but isn't using its technology for all the tests it offers' evoked a lot of interest and has subsequently sent a shockwave through the investing community as well as the general populace.
In an article in Forbes, Mr. Aswath Damodaran has elaborately put forward the entire Theranos life story until now. The link to the same is given below. It now remains to be seen as to how Theranos and Ms. Elizabeth Holmes react to the allegations leveled against the company.
First appearance in Nov. 2014
So far, not many have heard of Ms. Elizabeth Holmes or of the company she has founded - Theranos. I chanced upon knowing a bit about both when I stumbled upon an article in the Fortune magazine related to them (link given below). It is pretty amazing what the lady has achieved! Thanks to her and her company's efforts we seem to be on the cusp of a revolution in terms of how blood diagnostics are carried out. Theranos claims to be able to carry out blood diagnostics with a turnaround time in hours (compared to the current norm of some days), based on blood samples that are as small as 1/1,000 the size of a typical blood draw and even more interestingly by drawing the required blood sample in a manner that doesn't involve long needles and syringes!
After reading this article what also struck me as interesting was that [as per a wikipedia article] since the early 1950's the standard procedure for performing blood tests and diagnosis had not changed significantly up until now - despite the tremendous advances mankind has made in all other fields! This industry was therefore very ripe for a disruptive innovation, which we are seeing in the form of Theranos today.