“We have a belief system, which is that this is not about us or our technology. It’s about giving people a basic right that they have lost. This is the ability to get access to their health information. Our belief is that the cost of testing should be lower across the board.”Elizabeth HolmesWe think Theranos is in a position to change medicine as we know it, help improve the quality of human life and extend its duration.
What does it enable?
- Blood testing with minimal pain
- Pin prick sensation
- Vial of blood 1/100th or less of normal blood sample
- About the size of an electric fuse
Think of the impact on kids, cancer patients, elderly, or the 60% of people who say they are scared of needles (and therefore rarely if ever get blood tests.)
- Enables access to information for more people, for less money (up to 90% less), helping improve diagnosis and health outcomes.
- Makes it possible to focus more on prevention through monitoring proactively.
- Can potentially give people more control over information about their bodies/health and let them have more control / transparency as it relates to their health.
- Better information, better outcomes, less money, less pain, translating to a win
Some facts:
- Privately held
- $9 billion valuation
- Working on this for 11 years (there has been a lot of vetting/learning)
- Walgreens partnership will bring the blood testing solution to most of America
- Board of Directors is perhaps the most accomplished in history (serious people take this idea seriously.)
ForMen.com Take: Elizabeth Holmes is one of those rare people who is so passionate about a transformative idea that she has devoted her life to it at the expense of most everything else. We join the long list of more illustrious groups that are exceedingly impressed and embrace her vision. If we had the time and expertise, we would put together a Theranos Impact Fund and surface the companies that have the most to gain or lose form Theranos’s success.
Relevant Sources:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102624246
