alt Hacker NewsIt wouldn't have worked, period. You can't use capillary blood for the kind of blood tests they were claiming to. It's statistically impossible because the sample isn't big enough and drawing more capillary blood doesn't improve the SNR. Two samples taken at the same time from different spots on the same finger can yield wildly different results.
Everyone in diagnostic medicine knows this (they've been dealing with this problem since the glucose finger prick test). That's why no biotech VC ever invested in Theranos and they had to get tech VCs and fancy board members like Henry Kissinger. A cursory glance at the proposal by someone qualified would have shut that down immediately, but tech VCs don't do due diligence anymore.
Replies
It’s not a lack of due diligence, it’s a lack of prosecution of fraud. They think they can just unload to some sucker for a big payday. See also the entirety of cryptocurrency.
> but tech VCs don't do due diligence anymore
They hope they can cash out before the bubble bursts, whatever that bubble is.
> It wouldn't have worked, period.
That's the point. As yet uninvented tests and reagents are the same kind of line of BS as "let's make the rocket bigger." While I have the advantage of having a mother who is an immunologist and did in fact work in developing diagnostics, all it really takes to call shenanigans is a knowledge of project management and critical path analysis. By the time you're launching 15 or 25 starship missions to refuel one on its way to the moon, the whole project is irrelevant.