Comment by pclmulqdq
11 hours ago
Theranos was a bit too early to its idea, and while they were flailing around trying to get customers with the Edison, microfluidic testing became a reality. It was done by the "old" medical device companies that Theranos was supposed to disrupt. It turned out they were the competent ones.
It is entirely possible to spend 15 years doing absolutely nothing of value.
I mean, not really.
Their claim was that they could run hundreds of tests on a mere drop / drops of non-arterial blood, including several that are basically physically impossible due to the makeup of blood in capillaries being different from arteries.
That's still not possible to anything like the original degree of the claim.
Yeah that's true and it's an important distinction. Tests today run on a few microliters of arterial blood, which is "one drop," but to get the right blood they still need to stick a needle in your arm.