May 18, 2016 8:16 p.m. ET
Company led by Elizabeth Holmes withdraws all Edison results from 2014 and 2015, issues tens of thousands of corrected blood-test reports
Theranos Inc. has told federal health regulators that the company voided two years of results from its Edison blood-testing devices, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Edison machines were touted as revolutionary and were the main basis for the $9 billion valuation attained by the Palo Alto, Calif., company in a funding round in 2014. But Theranos has now told regulators that it threw out all Edison test results from 2014 and 2015.
The company has told the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that it has issued tens of thousands of corrected blood-test reports to doctors and patients, voiding some results and revising others, according to the person familiar with the matter.
That means some patients received erroneous results that might have thrown off health decisions made with their doctors.
The corrected reports include the voided Edison results and many tests run on traditional laboratory machines, the person said.
Several physician practices in the Phoenix area confirmed receiving corrected test reports from Theranos in recent weeks.
The move is part of Theranos’s attempt to persuade the agency not to impose stiff sanctions it threatened in the aftermath of its inspection of the company’s Newark, Calif., laboratory. The voided and revised test results are one of the most dramatic steps yet taken by Theranos.
Company records reviewed during the inspection showed that the California lab ran about 890,000 tests a year. The inspection found that Edison machines in the lab often failed to meet the company’s own accuracy requirements.
Theranos has told regulators that it used the Edison for 12 types of tests out of more than 200 offered to consumers and stopped using the devices altogether in late June 2015, the person familiar with the matter said.
“There have been massive recalls of single tests in the past, but I’m not aware of one where a company recalled the entirety of the results from its testing platform,” said Geoffrey Baird, associate professor in the department of laboratory medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle. “I believe that’s unprecedented.”
In response to questions from The Wall Street Journal about the blood-test corrections, Theranos spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said: “Excellence in quality and patient safety is our top priority and we’ve taken comprehensive corrective measures to address the issues CMS raised in their observations. As these matters are currently under review, we have no further comment at this time.”...MORE
