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| Theranos' Palo Alto, CA, headquarters--Courtesy of Theranos |
A lot of fingers have been pointed during Theranos' fall from grace, with most of them directed at the company and its beleaguered front woman Elizabeth Holmes. But now, a new report is placing some of the blame on new shoulders: the Silicon Valley press.
Tech reporters idolized Holmes without asking tough questions, according to a new article in Vanity Fair. A tech blogger had his blood drawn onstage as he interviewed Holmes at an event, the story points out. And Holmes featured front and center in stories in T: The New York Times Style Magazine and the New Yorker, but reporters rarely pushed back at the company's test development.
It wasn't until Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou saw a passage in the New Yorker's profile of Holmes that journalists started digging deeper. Ken Auletta, the reporter who wrote the piece, said that Theranos was "treated as a state secret" and that Holmes' description of its testing was "comically vague."
Carreyrou subsequently got a tip from a source that "the coverage that the company was getting belied some serious issues," he told Vanity Fair. Carreyrou decided to do some investigating and uncovered troubling information, which he published in an October report.
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| Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes |
Theranos collected finger-prick blood samples for only one of its tests after the FDA found that "nanotainers" made and used by the company to collect samples were unapproved medical devices. And Theranos did most of its testing on devices made by other companies, according to Carreyrou's stories. Holmes repeatedly declined Carreyrou's requests for an interview, according to the Vanity Fair story.
The WSJ articles triggered a firestorm of criticism and very public fallout for Theranos. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) uncovered serious issues last year at the company's Newark, CA-based lab. Unpleased with Theranos' response, CMS is weighing sanctions that would ban Holmes from the company for two years.
Theranos is also facing probes from the SEC and U.S. Attorney's Office over its technology. Last month, Theranos' reluctant partner Walgreens Boots Alliance ($WBA) got a letter asking for information about the Palo Alto, CA-based company's tests.
Part of the reason why tech reporters have let Theranos slide by has to do with the system, the Vanity Fair article points out. Many tech outlets rely on conferences for their revenue, and they don't want to risk losing buyers and support by asking hard-hitting questions of top brass. Plus, newspapers or magazines with negative coverage of tech trends often don't get access to higher-ups or perks including prereleased versions of new technology such as apps.
But Theranos deals in the business of human health, which should have prompted more questions from the press, Vanity Fair points out. "It's OK if you've got a smartphone app or a social network, and you go live with it before it's ready; people aren't going to die," Carreyrou told the magazine. "But with medicine, it's different."
- read the Vanity Fair story
Special Report: The most influential people in biopharma today – Elizabeth Holmes - Theranos