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Theranos is an American privately-held medical-laboratory-services company based in Palo Alto, California. Theranos has claimed to have developed a blood-testing device named Edison that uses a few drops of blood obtained via a finger-stick rather than vials of blood obtained via traditional venipuncture, utilizing microfluidics technology. Its founders have raised over $400 million from investors, valuing the company at $9 billion, without their testing device ever being subject to peer-reviewed study. On 16 October 2015, ''The Wall Street Journal'', quoting many unnamed current and former employees, revealed that Theranos's flagship Edison testing device might provide very inaccurate results. Theranos attacked the ''Wall Street Journal'', but did not refute any of the allegations.〔http://recode.net/2015/10/22/theranos-attacks-wall-street-journal-again-in-a-rebuttal-youll-need-a-medical-degree-to-understand/〕 On 28 October 2015, the Food and Drug Administration also revealed major shortcomings in the company's practices and ordered Theranos to stop using its Edison medical device, which it had neither tested for accuracy nor approved, contrary to the company's previous claims. Theranos was ordered to limit its use of Edison to one of the 200 tests it offers. Theranos has also claimed to have partnerships with GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer, which both GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer have denied. The company also claimed successful venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurveston had invested in them, but company principal Steve Jurvetson clarified that it had provided the company's first $500,000 seed investment and nothing more.〔http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-19/early-theranos-investor-remains-supportive-even-without-answers-ifydlf03〕 After the revelations of October 2015, Theranos's partner Walgreens suspended their plans to rollout Theranos's testing services in their stores,〔http://www.marinij.com/arts-and-entertainment/20151019/quinn-time-for-theranos-and-elizabeth-holmes-to-open-up/3〕 and it was revealed that Safeway had already cancelled a $350 million agreement to use Theranos's testing technology amid doubts about its accuracy.〔http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/theranos-safeway-deal/〕 The Cleveland Clinic hospital, recently announced as a Theranos partner, distanced itself from Theranos's technology and denied they had verified its accuracy.〔http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/30/well-work-to-verify-theranos-technology-cleveland-clinic-ceo.html〕 Customers have reported writing to Theranos querying inaccurate results, receiving no response.〔http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/10/18/theranos-trouble-a-first-person-account/〕 On 16th October 2015, Theranos claimed the company had publicly verified its results against those of other providers.〔http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/business/the-narrative-frays-for-theranos-and-elizabeth-holmes.html〕 After no evidence could be found to support the claim, Theranos agreed on 27th October 2015 to release data showing its tests were reliable and accurate.〔http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/business/chief-of-theranos-pledges-to-prove-blood-tests-reliability.html?_r=0〕 As of December 2015, it had not done so. ==History== Theranos was founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes with the goal of streamlining and standardizing blood tests by creating a hand-held device. Holmes claims to have founded a software company and worked on a protein microarray for the detection of SARS in Singapore, and left Stanford University at age 19 while a sophomore majoring in chemical engineering, to start Theranos. Holmes' Stanford chemical engineering professor Channing Robertson had encouraged her in the endeavor, and joined the board of directors.〔 The company had raised $16 million in two rounds of initial fundraising,〔 and $28.5 million in a third round in 2006. In 2010, Theranos raised an additional $45 million from a single unnamed investor, bringing its total funding to more than $70 million. Investors included ATA Ventures, Tako Ventures, Continental Properties Inc., and Larry Ellison, former CEO of Oracle.〔 In February 2015, a Journal of the AMA editorial noted that information about such technology had appeared in the mainstream press including ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''Business Insider'', ''San Francisco Business Times'', ''Fortune'', ''Forbes'', ''Medscape'', and ''Silicon Valley Business Journal'', but not in the peer-reviewed biomedical literature. In October 2015, a ''Wall Street Journal'' investigative report cited former Theranos employees in asserting that lab work processed on its own Edison machines showed discrepancies on a number of specific blood tests when tested against traditional equipment. The alleged discrepancies in Theranos' proficiency testing and reporting to regulators led to a formal complaint filed with the New York State Department of Health that was forwarded to the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services.〔 Moreover, the bulk of the blood tests being performed by Theranos were revealed to be conducted on traditional machines of competitors' companies, such as Siemens, rather than its own Edison machines.〔 ''Wired'' asserted that the company may have been succumbing to Silicon Valley pressures of trying to "spin hype into startup gold" and promising more than they could deliver.〔 Theranos asserted that the reports were “factually and scientifically erroneous and grounded in baseless assertions by inexperienced and disgruntled former employees and industry incumbents.” Subsequently, a key metric of Theranos valuation was notably called into question when Walgreens placed on hold further expansion of Theranos Wellness Centers. Additionally, after an FDA inspection Theranos reports it has voluntarily suspended use of its flagship micro or low volume blood testing technique except for Herpes virus testing. Subsequent articles have called into question the credibility of statements Theranos has previously made regarding the nature and source of its income.〔 Though Theranos has often claimed to have FDA approval for its laboratory tests, FDA inspection reports from 2014 and 2015 suggest significant concerns the government has noted. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Theranos」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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