Six years after the fall of Theranos, companies are again exploring innovation in blood testing. The medical community is reacting with cautious optimism.
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Six years after the fall of Theranos, innovators are again venturing into blood testing. A startup in Texas is promising speed and convenience with a new type of finger-prick test. Olivia Aldridge of member station KUT looked into reactions from customers and medical professionals.
OLIVIA ALDRIDGE, BYLINE: On a recent Friday, Jim Ross visits Lake Hills Pharmacy in Austin to have his blood drawn. At this appointment, there’s no long, intimidating needle, no searching around for a vein.
JIM ROSS: Ah, there we go.
ALDRIDGE: Instead, Ross puts his hand on a warming device, and a pharmacy technician squeezes just a pea-size amount of his blood from his fingertips.
UNIDENTIFIED PHARMACY TECHNICIAN: Now, we’re going to use one of these two fingers. Do you have a preference?
ROSS: No.
ALDRIDGE: Ahead of the appointment, Ross chose from an online menu of 11 common blood tests – measurements like cholesterol, kidney function and blood count. And by tomorrow morning, he’ll get a text message with a plain-language explanation of his results.
ROSS: I went to my annual physical, and the doctor made some medication changes. So it’s just nice to be able to just drop in and get a test to see if things were working well now.
ALDRIDGE: This blood testing service is called BetterWay, and it hit the market at nearly a dozen Austin pharmacies this summer. It’s available by insurance with a doctor referral or as an out-of-pocket purchase. It’s targeted at people like Ross, who want to monitor their health a little more closely and who want an easier way to access routine blood work. Eric Olson is the chief operating officer of BetterWay’s parent lab, Babson Diagnostics.
ERIC OLSON: It’s having to take multiple buses to get to the patient service center that you want to go to, or it’s the inconvenience of taking time off of work to get to a place that’s only open weekdays and in the middle of the day.
ALDRIDGE: A veteran of the blood testing industry, Olson says BetterWay’s method breaks the mold and that pharmacy techs and all kinds of providers – not just blood draw specialists – can be trained to use it at convenient locations outside the doctor’s office.
OLSON: It’s something that becomes easy to fit into your life and more difficult to just skip.
ALDRIDGE: BetterWay is one of many companies angling to carve out their own niche in the blood testing market using small amounts of blood. But all of them have the extra burden of answering for one company’s crimes. That company, of course, is Theranos. Its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, is serving an 11-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy at a federal prison in Texas.
DAVID KOCH: She hoodwinked a lot of people.
ALDRIDGE: That’s David Koch, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University in Atlanta.
KOCH: It’s unfortunate that, you know, a lot of us are skeptical because Theranos didn’t do it the right way.
ALDRIDGE: Theranos said it could run tests for hundreds of conditions – from HIV to cancer – using just a few drops of blood on a small proprietary device. It didn’t work. Instead, the company was often diluting samples and running them through traditional lab equipment, leading to inaccurate results. BetterWay’s approach is different. It does use an on-site device that prepares samples for testing, but the actual tests happen back at the lab using fairly traditional equipment. Plus, for now, it sticks to the basics, offering only a panel of routine tests. So are the experts buying what BetterWay is selling? Professor David Koch says it’s an appealing concept, but he’s still skeptical.
KOCH: We’re interested in this new technology, but it’s got to work well. And how do we know that it works well? By testing it – by putting it through its paces.
ALDRIDGE: Koch says he needs to see data published in peer-reviewed studies before he’ll start to feel confident. BetterWay does share some clinical trial data on its website, and its founder, Eric Olson, says several submissions to medical journals are currently pending. Thanks to Theranos, he knows earning the medical community’s trust is going to be tough, but he does also give Theranos some credit for trying to shake up a static industry.
OLSON: For as much of a fraud and a disaster as it was for public trust, it was inspiring in that it opened minds to the potential that blood testing could be different from how it is today.
ALDRIDGE: And as BetterWay and its peers begin to ramp up, you can bet that scientists and investors will keep a close eye on what’s promised and delivered.
For NPR News, I’m Olivia Aldridge in Austin.
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