- [Narrator] Biotech company Theranos
promised a blood testing revolution.
With just a single drop of blood,
their machine could run hundreds of medical tests.
Except the technology didn't exist,
at least not in the way that its founder, Elizabeth Holmes,
envisioned it.
But that dream isn't over yet.
Theranos made some pretty lofty promises
that would have upended traditional blood testing
as we knew it, with its mini lab,
dubbed the Edison.
- If you could have just a single drop of blood,
you wouldn't need to go to a lab
and get your blood drawn for testing.
It would make it so much easier.
Really revolutionize the blood testing industry.
Like, that's a appealing promise.
- [Narrator] Nicole Wetsman is a health reporter
at The Verge.
She's spent time covering the Theranos trial
from the courthouse in San Jose
and explained to us why the blood testing industry
even needed a company like Theranos to begin with.
- For a standard blood test,
you have to go and you go sit down and a lab tech
will draw vials of blood out of your arm.
And then probably get sent out to a lab or, you know,
some larger offices might have machines in house.
So Theranos claimed to be able to create a system
that would kind of circumvent a lot of those challenges.
So they said that they could have a tabletop doctor's office
sized machine that could run hundreds of blood tests
on a single drop of blood.
- [Narrator] But even from the beginning,
pathologist questioned the accuracy.
- What I'm surprised about is, you know, you look,
you look at the people in the room
and there's clearly been a lot of interest in your company.
I would argue that a lot of that comes from the fact
that there were these claims that were made
that were very broad early on.
70 tests, the whole panoply of lab tests
from a couple of drops of blood
and the evidence that you presented fell far short of that.
- There are things that you can do
with a single drop of blood.
You can test your blood sugar level for example,
but there are other things where a single drop
is just not realistic.
There might not be high enough concentration
of what you're trying to measure in a tiny drop.
- [Narrator] Studies have shown that important
blood markers, such as white blood cell count or hemoglobin,
can vary greatly from one drop to another one
obtained via the finger.
But even if individual drops were identical,
certain tests need to separate out cells with a centrifuge
or add specific chemicals to the samples
that would make repeat testing impossible.
Theranos's ambitions are commendable,
but the idea was nothing new.
- So there are things that Theranos was trying to do
that are also things that more realistic researchers
are also working on.
You kind of have a couple of main things happening.
You have the single drop of blood issue.
You have the lots of tests on one sample issue,
and you have the let's shrink this all down
to a small machine.
And those all kind of individually are things
that people are working on, but those are really hard.
And there are a lot of kind of really significant challenges
that a lot of smart people are working on.
Experts do not really think that that sort of pie in the sky
vision is something that's really going to be feasible,
despite kind of the potential for a lot of this stuff
to really be improved and innovated on in reality.
- [Narrator] While many researchers have been trying
to advance this technology in labs,
a ton of buzz surrounded Theranos
because it was telling investors
it could all be done right now.
According to testimony from the trial,
Holmes was telling investors that the machines
were already being used on military helicopters
in combat zones.
These claims would not only come back to haunt
Elizabeth Holmes in her fraud trial,
but they also had a chilling effect on other research
being conducted in the field of blood testing.
- Folks were working on blood test technology
and trying to shrink down tests or do more with less
had trouble getting funding or interest
because investors said well, Theranos has already done this.
So why should we invest with you?
And then when it came out that Theranos
couldn't actually do what they said they were going to do,
you had sort of the opposite problem where people would say,
oh, but isn't that all just a scam?
And so that made it harder for people to attract funding
for their more realistic projects.
- [Narrator] As we approach the end of the trial
of Elizabeth Holmes,
it's become clear that this trial has uncovered many cracks
in the way that startups operate,
particularly healthcare startups.
- The Theranos scandal and fallout
has really made people kind of question
whether the Silicon Valley startup move fast,
break things ethos is the approach we should be taking
to medical technology where people's health
and lives are sort of really on the line here.
And the accuracy and success of these technologies
has really important implications for people's health.
- [Narrator] And because of this,
everyone will remain highly skeptical
of any new advancements in the blood testing industry
for years to come.
- Like anything in science and medical technology,
you're going to see progress and you're going to see
kind of iterative innovation.
But what we're likely not going to see is someone pop out
of out of the ground with a device
that's going to change everything.
You know,
science is hard and we want to be careful
with how we move forward and make sure that the progress
we're making is actually real progress.