Ep. 17: "Not a Drop of Truth: The Impossible Promise of Theranos"

On October 17th, 2022, Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of the now-bankrupt diagnostics company Theranos, will be sentenced after her conviction for one count of wire fraud conspiracy and three substantive wire fraud counts relating to the scheme to defraud investors, including wire transfers totaling more than $140 million. She faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution, for the conspiracy count and each count of wire fraud... but before all of that, investors fell for Theranos's technology. How were they deceived in the first place? And why did Theranos’s fingerprick diagnostic system NOT work as claimed? Could that technology with such small blood sample sizes ever conceivably detect of all the things they claimed?

On this special episode of "Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics", Halteres Associates founding partner Mickey Urdea answers all of those questions and more with the assistance of associate Scott Eastman. Mickey met with Theranos all the way back in 2006 and quickly concluded that their technology was never going to work - but how? And why were so many others fooled? Tune in to find out, as Mickey and Scott walk you through the actual biochemistry fundamentals behind the impossible promise of Theranos!