The composition of the board has always bothered me. It's not at all clear what business value a lot of those people bring. Maybe opening certain doors, but I would've thought in such an area, as the article suggests, you would want more medical expertise.
That should be a little bit of a red flag to anyone - since the history of scientific fraud is full of lone specialists who couldn't brook explaining the technical details to anyone else qualified to understand them.
It seems pretty clear to me and with the lack of peer-review and technical details paints a pretty disturbing picture. When I saw those names an image formed of a company gearing up to bend the government to its business objectives through its board's political ties.
Now, I'm not sure if that's because:
A.) They don't have a game changer or it's going to come under fierce scrutiny by the larger scientific community so they need to try to mandate its use through legal means and using the military as a gateway and OUR military budget as an early source of funds.
OR
B.) Even though they have the real deal, the nature of the political landscape in which medicine operates necessitates the back-room dealing that this board can deliver on.
Medical industry as I understand it employs all possible methods to curb competition. These include heavy political lobbying. The Washington heavy weights make sure their competitors cannot find enough political ammunition to curb them unless there is strong fact based evidence against their method.
It's also interesting there are so many foreign policy heavyweights, and many in a certain range on the political spectrum. I'm not suggesting some conspiracy, I just wonder why.
One big problem in the healthcare in africa, is the cost and complexity of blood tests. And we know lab-on-chip technology can fix that, but nobody is working on that, because of "business model" problems.
But that's one thing a successful theranos could do, and foreign policy is important at that.
This is complete misdirection though. It has no relevance to a biotech company. If the test is cheap and easy, then charities and governments will carry it into Africa. There's no fiscal reason to pay people with foreign policy experience, because it has nothing to do with foreign policy. Its miles away from being relevant to the central technology, and African charity is not how one achieves a multi-billion valuation.
That should be a little bit of a red flag to anyone - since the history of scientific fraud is full of lone specialists who couldn't brook explaining the technical details to anyone else qualified to understand them.