Suppressing scandals with a product launch?

About Theranos’ launch

Theranos once promised to revolutionize the blood testing industry, which was a flop eventually. The ‘promised’ blood-testing kit with propriety rights of Edison was unsuccessful as claimed. On Monday, CEO and founder of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, unveiled a new product, which turned out to be another successor of Edison machines. The MiniLab is supposed to run multiple blood tests through just 160 ml of blood taken from a pricked finger. The machine is still in the testing phase.

The new machine is the size of a computer printer. Holmes showed clinical data based on 11 tests MiniLab could run on blood samples, including a test for Zika virus as well. The company claims that their new device can run up to 40 tests.

The new technology is code-named “4.1”. Theranos said its MiniLab is yet to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This Palo-Alto based company has presented the data publicly before the machine goes on sale, which is a bit unusual of it. According to the company, MiniLab doesn’t necessarily belong inside a clinical lab; on the contrary, it is simple enough to be utilized in patient wards like the neonatal intensive-care unit.

Here’s a video for Theranos’ MiniLab

Controversies revolving around Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes had promised that her biotech startup would change the lab testing method by delivering faster, cheaper and more handy results. It was launched in 2003. Theranos became the “unicorn” of venture capitalists, with an estimated worth of $9 billion. The company voided all results from its Edison machines for 2014 and 2015. Later it sent thousands of corrected test reports to patients and doctors. The Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services inspected and concluded that the Edison devices failed quality-control checks and faced accuracy problems. Theranos’ only blood testing product approved by the FDA was — a herpes test. The company is currently being investigated by federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Apart from the on-going investigations, Holmes has also been banned from labs for the next two years.

Should Theranos be allowed to launch MiniLab in the market?? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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