Theranos used its scientific conference presentation to unveil its new products - and people weren't loving it
The presentation, part of the AACC conference, took place at the Pennsylvania Convention Center's ballroom. It was packed to capacity. In it, she demonstrated Theranos' new blood-testing products in development, including a new processor called the miniLab (the technology that can run small amounts of blood - past versions were referred to as "Edison") and the Theranos Virtual Analyzer. They're Theranos' latest attempt to do what Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes calls a "decentralized" lab, meaning that you can process the test without necessarily shipping it off to a brick-and-mortar lab.
Here's what the miniLab looks like:
But those expecting to see large sets of independently reviewed data were sorely disappointed by the product reveal.
Regarding Theranos' broad claims of being able to run 70+ tests on a single drop of blood, moderator Stephen Master told Holmes, "The evidence you presented fell far short of that." The comment was met with clapping from the audience. A few other critical questions of Theranos' blood-testing data also garnered applause.
Those live-tweeting during the event didn't seem too pleased either.
Some on Twitter, however, did seem to be a bit more willing to be patient.
Now that the new technology has been unveiled, the next step appears to be to wait until there can be the full data to back it up. Holmes said in the presentation that the company plans to submit data for peer review and FDA approval on this new technology.