Theranos, under the leadership of Elizabeth Holmes, used its connections to implement its predictive modeling strategy in Mexico during the Swine flu outbreak. Elizabeth used her Stanford batch connections to ship two dozen Edison readers to a hospital in Mexico City. The idea was to create mathematical models from blood-test results of recently infected patients to predict where the virus would spread next. However, the Edison machines functioned unreliably, producing frequent error messages and incorrect results. As the epidemic came under control, the project lost momentum.

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Bad Blood

Learn why and how a $9 billion dollar company vanished in a few weeks. The story of Theranos is the Silicon Valley equivalent of the Enron scandal rep...

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The outbreak of Swine flu at Mexico was seen by Elizabeth and Sunny as the perfect opportunity to demonstrate Edison's usefulness. The Chief Scientific Officer at Theranos proposed creating mathematical models from blood-test results of recently infected patients to predict where the virus would spread next. Elizabeth used her Stanford batch connections in Mexico to ship two dozen Edison readers to Mexico City hospital. Sunny and another colleague flew down to Mexico to test patients for Swine Flu. The Edisons functioned unreliably and produced frequent error messages and wrong results. Sunny also traveled to Thailand, which had a massive Swine Flu outbreak, to set up Edisons for testing. There were rumors this was not done by the book. As the epidemic came under control, both the Mexico and Thailand projects slowly lost momentum. Theranos pivoted yet again, this time from predictive modeling to consumer testing i.e performing doctor prescribed blood tests for patients

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Theranos faced several challenges in implementing its predictive modeling strategy during the Swine Flu outbreak. Firstly, the Edison machines, which were supposed to create mathematical models from blood-test results, functioned unreliably and produced frequent error messages and incorrect results. This severely hampered their ability to accurately predict where the virus would spread next. Secondly, there were rumors that the deployment of the Edison machines in Thailand, which was experiencing a massive Swine Flu outbreak, was not done properly. Finally, as the epidemic came under control, the projects in both Mexico and Thailand lost momentum, forcing Theranos to pivot from predictive modeling to consumer testing.

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