Walgreens also informed Theranos that tests collected at its Walgreens Wellness Centers at its Arizona stores must be sent only to Theranos’ certified lab in Phoenix or to an accredited third-party lab, according to a Walgreens press release.
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Theranos told Walgreens the corrections were part of the normal process of coming back into compliance with regulators and only involved tests performed in the California lab, according to people familiar with the matter.
Walgreens said that it’s terminating its relationship with Theranos and that it is immediately closing down all 40 of the Theranos Wellness Centers located in its stores in Arizona. The botched accuracy testing reports of Theranos has helped in its rather short shelf life and lead to this ordeal that they are facing, no fault is at hand with Walgreens and they are not now under any scrutiny.
Theranos developed a blood test device it named Edison. The company was founded on the premise that its fingerprick blood testing was as accurate as tests requiring larger samples, at a much lower price.
The relationship was central to Theranos’ sustainability (or, at least, its outward fiction of sustainability), but Walgreens announced late Sunday that it would sever ties the biotech company.
The partnership between Theranos and Walgreens began in 2013, and the company gave Theranos a hefty dose of credibility to match the ludicrous myth-making that surrounded Holmes herself.
Federal investigators are investigating Theranos after the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services identified deficiencies in the company’s testing processes, which had promised expeditious and comprehensive results using a fingerprick method.
Walgreen’s announcement was a long time coming.
Since then, Theranos’s technology has come under intense scrutiny. It only requires a few milliliters of blood, whereas conventional tests would require a whole vial of blood drawn with a needle. Top Walgreens leaders previously anxious they could face litigation seeking massive damages if they unilaterally closed Theranos’s testing sites at their Arizona stores, according to people with knowledge of the thinking inside Walgreens.
Actress Jennifer Lawrence is set to star as Elizabeth Holmes in a film about Theranos, the biotech startup that was valued at $9 billion before a Wall Street Journal investigation uncovered serious issues with some of the company’s claims, Deadline Hollywood reported last week (June 9).
The Theranos founder owns almost half of the company. Theranos has said it voided the tests out of an abundance of caution, and doesn’t think any patients were affected.
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Recently, though, things have taken a negative turn for Theranos.
