NPR reports that the shamed Theranos founder/CEO is providing advice to Evans, but the startup denies that claim
Prison bars can’t block Elizabeth Holmes from finding her way back into the news spotlight. The disgraced founder and former CEO of Theranos is reportedly advising her partner Billy Evans on his new artificial intelligence (AI) diagnostic startup company, named Haemanthus after the blood lily.
According to sources who spoke with NPR, Evans’ new company Haemanthus, Inc. is developing a blood testing device and has patented a process that uses Raman spectroscopy, which, according to NPR, “has been shown to help diagnose ALS, also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, as well as some forms of cancer. It has also been used to discover improvised explosive devices on battlefields.”
Evans has already raised millions of dollars for the fledgling startup, NPR reported, adding that a source claimed finances for the company have come from “mostly friends, family, and other supporters so far.”
According to Newsweek, Evans’ goal is to raise $50 million toward the development of a “medical testing product.”
The company will “do medical tests using bodily fluids,” Newsweek reported, adding, “An image of the alleged device published by The New York Times is eerily similar to Theranos’ ‘Edison’ testing machine.”
Elizabeth Holmes is currently housed in a federal facility in Bryan, Texas. Sources told NPR that she has been “providing advice” to Billy Evans, her partner, on his new AI/medical testing company Haemanthus, which denied those claims stating on X that Holmes “has no role, now or future.” (Photo copyright: Wikimedia Commons.)
Haemanthus Denies Holmes’ Involvement
Holmes has reportedly been providing insight to Evans throughout her prison term, though her role with his budding company is unclear, NPR noted.
As previously reported by Dark Daily, Holmes is “barred from receiving payments from federal health programs for services or products, which significantly restricts her ability to work in the healthcare sector.”
Haemanthus denied Holmes’ involvement with the company, claiming that she “has no formal role” and that “Haemanthus is not Theranos 2.0,” Fortune reported.
Previous lengthy posts by Haemanthus on social media platform X fully denied any involvement with Holmes but have since been deleted. The company now uses their platform to curtly retort the significance of Holmes’ involvement, leaning on their advancements and high standards. “Skepticism is rational. We must clear a higher bar,” they said. “When The NY Times contacted us, we invited them to see our lab, tech, and team. They declined. The headline was already written. Our reality inconvenient.”
Further posts on X showcase Haemanthus’ desire to have the same groundbreaking prowess Holmes clung to throughout her Theranos venture. The company claims to have developed “the world’s first AI-native sensors for health,” adding, “Our technology captures thousands of biomarkers simultaneously.”
And the Holmes Saga Continues
Haemanthus is comprised of about a dozen people, including individuals who “worked with Evans at Luminar Technologies, which develops sensor technology for autonomous vehicles, according to the company’s patent and Delaware incorporation paperwork,” NPR reported.
Holmes is currently serving an 11-year federal prison sentence for her role in fraud involving Silicon Valley startup Theranos, which boasted clinical laboratory blood-test breakthroughs that turned out to be riddled with faulty equipment and fraudulent results.
Though whistleblowers brought Holmes scheme to the light, she has never admitted wrongdoing for her actions and continues to claim her innocence. In May, the Ninth Circuit of Appeals denied her request for a rehearing of her case.
Pathology groups and clinical laboratories experiencing shortages in management positions may want to consider on-demand healthcare leaders
Are “on-demand” leaders the answer to clinical laboratory and pathology group staff shortages? Perhaps. A new twist on management philosophies is gaining steam in hospitals: Hiring on-demand managers and executives to fill gaps in high-level staff. The practice is growing quickly and making its mark.
“[On-demand leadership] is really taking off,” said Adam Burns, Principal, Interim Leadership, at international executive search/leadership consulting firm WittKieffer, in a Newsweek article. “I think it’s something that’s going to be permanent in the industry. Once [health systems] start to think about all the different ways they could use somebody—when you take the org chart out of it and just think about the lists of challenges and projects and opportunities they have—it’s endless.”
Clinical lab administrators and pathologists should note that the trend of on-demand management assignments is distinctly different from the traditional locum tenens and temporary staffing that have been common in healthcare for decades. These arrangements are typically used to engage physicians and laboratory scientists to handle the daily delivery of clinical services. The on-demand management model engages individuals with proven management skills to address specific initiatives and projects that the institution would not otherwise be able to achieve.
Tight finances in many hospitals make hiring on-demand managers for short-term assignments versus long-term permanent positions a cost-effective way to deal with projects that need specific skills to be implemented. Another factor is experienced hospital administrators who retire but then want to return on a limited basis. They have desirable skills, knowledge, and energy worth retaining and on-demand positions may make that possible and affordable.
As hospitals warm up to on-demand engagements, clinical laboratories may also see benefits as the trend widens and gains more acceptance.
“The business challenges in healthcare are getting bigger every year. They’re very high stakes, because people’s lives are at stake,” Sandra Pinnavaia (above), Partner, Global Head, On-Demand Talent Strategy and Innovation at Heidrick and Struggles, told Becker’s Hospital Review. The Chicago-based global executive search and consulting firm has seen a strong increase in hospital placements and notes that healthcare is the “eighth most served industry sector in the US.” Pinnavaia says this growth helps hospitals keep up with “an evolving industry,” of leaning on temporary help. Might clinical laboratories benefit from filling empty leadership positions with on-demand leaders? (Photo copyright: Heidrick and Struggles.)
Who Are On-Demand Executives, What Positions Do They Fill?
According to Becker’s Hospital Review, an on-demand executive is “an independent and established business professional—ranging from the C-suite to the director level, or a management consultant,” who is often brought in to help with specific projects or fill gaps within an organization as needed during transitional times. Most provide temporary support without seeking full-time stability.
Top on-demand positions, Becker’s reported, include:
Financial controls,
Accounting and auditing,
Organizational design and workforce planning, and
Technology and systems implementation.
There has been a steady two-year increase of health systems “looking for senior leaders to solve specific problems rather than to hold specific titles,” Burns told Newsweek.
Occasionally, a “specialized eye” is needed for specific challenges, such as hiring a former Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) to establish an infrastructure that lasts beyond his or her stay, Newsweek noted.
“[Hiring an on-demand leader is] the most cost-effective option,” Burns said. “Organizations compare it to the cost of consulting firms, and when you compare hiring a senior leader in an on-demand capacity to hiring a consulting firm, many times it’s a third or half of the expense.”
Additionally, many hospital systems are still regrouping after the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. With all the consolidation that occurred to leadership teams as cost-savings efforts, many “systems lack the bench strength to source special projects from within,” Newsweek added.
Plusses for Hospitals
The benefits are numerous for hospitals according to Burns. “When health systems reflexively look inward for new projects, they can unconsciously build their tolerance for the status quo. On the other hand, a fresh, unbiased perspective can open new doors for the organization. On-demand leaders can make honest recommendations about what is best for the health system, free from internal politics or preexisting expectations,” he told Newsweek.
“The right on-demand leader can create momentum [on a project] without a long-term engagement with our system when there is no definitive construct of what an organization wants a function or role to look like,” Feby Abraham, PhD, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston, told Becker’s Hospital Review.
Further, “these roles provide opportunities for leaders with extensive healthcare experience, allow for a faster track to build momentum, and allow for developing a clearer vision for the long-term, full-time version of roles,” he added.
Plusses for On-Demanders
Pinnavaia told Becker’s Hospital Review, “[On-demand executives] are free agents, independent, and available to jump in and out of the organizations they serve, either by providing a proper coverage to a gap, like being an interim leader sitting in a gap, or to the augmentation of injecting skills and experience around a particular topic or movement in the business cycle.”
Burns notes that “numerous factors [are] fueling demand” for on-demand positions, Newsweek reported, adding that “Baby boomers are aging out of senior leadership roles and into retirement, leaving experience gaps in their wake. But after a year of vacationing and pursuing hobbies, many healthcare executives start itching for a new challenge. They become strong candidates for on-demand roles, which allow them to contribute their extensive knowledge without committing to an indefinite seat.”
It’s Not Magic
“This is a growing category, but it’s not magic,” Pinnavaia told Becker’s Hospital Review. “It takes an intermediary that advises both sides of the equation about how to make the project successful, how to structure the project, how to onboard someone, how to really make sure it’s going well. Secondly, it takes talent that has really done this before … it is a learning muscle,” she added.
Abraham agreed. “Many of the challenges revolved around crafting the role description up front, finding the right candidate, and then getting feedback to maximize the impact of that on-demand role itself,” he told Becker’s Hospital Review.
While hospitals warm to the notion of on-demand engagements, this trend may make its way into many clinical laboratories. Readers who work within hospital and healthcare settings should pay close attention. Understanding how these services are being used can provide a proper heads-up of what may come.
Do you have a story to share of your own experience? Hospital and health system laboratories using on-demand management assignments are invited to contact us to share their successes with this approach and the lessons learned.
Researchers find declining antibody levels in SARS-CoV-2 patients are offset by T cells and B cells that remain behind to fight off reinfection
Questions remain regarding how long antibodies produced by a COVID-19 vaccine or natural infection will provide ongoing protection against SARS-CoV-2. However, a new study showing COVID-19 immunity may be “robust” and “long lasting” may signal important news for clinical laboratories and in vitro diagnostics companies developing serological tests for the coronavirus disease.
The LJI research team analyzed blood samples from 188 COVID-19 patients, 7% of whom had been hospitalized. They measured not only virus-specific antibodies in the blood stream, but also memory B cell infections, T helper cells, and cytotoxic (killer) T cells.
While antibodies eventually disappear from the blood stream, T cells and B cells appear to remain to fight future reinfection.
“As far as we know, this is the largest study ever for any acute infection that has measured all four of those components of immune memory,” Crotty said in a La Jolla Institute news release.
The LJI researchers found that virus-specific antibodies remained in the blood stream months after infection while spike-specific memory B cells—which could trigger an accelerated and robust antibody-mediated immune response in the event of reinfection—actually increased in the body after six months. In addition, COVID-19 survivors had an army of T cells ready to halt reinfection.
“Our data show immune memory in at least three immunological compartments was measurable in ~95% of subjects five to eight months post symptom onset, indicating that durable immunity against secondary COVID-19 disease is a possibility in most individuals,” the study concludes. The small percentage of the population found not to have long-lasting immunity following COVID-19 infection could be vaccinated in an effort to stop reinfection from occurring on the way to achieving herd immunity, the LJI researchers maintained.
Do COVID-19 Vaccines Create Equal Immunity Against Reinfection?
Whether COVID-19 vaccinations will provide the same immune response as an active infection has yet to be determined, but indications are protection may be equally strong.
“It is possible that immune memory will be similarly long lasting similar following vaccination, but we will have to wait until the data come in to be able to tell for sure,”
LJI Research Professor Daniela Weiskopf, PhD, said in the LJI statement. “Several months ago, our studies showed that natural infection induced a strong response, and this study now shows that the response lasts. The vaccine studies are at the initial stages, and so far, have been associated with strong protection. We are hopeful that a similar pattern of responses lasting over time will also emerge for the vaccine-induced responses.”
The study’s authors cautioned that people previously diagnosed with COVID-19 should not assume they have protective immunity from reinfection, the Washington Post noted. In fact, according to the LJI news release, researchers saw a “100-fold range in the magnitude of immune memory.”
Alessandro Sette, Doctor of Biological Sciences (above), an Italian immunologist, Professor at the Center for Autoimmunity and Inflammation/Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, and co-author of the study, told the Washington Post that people should act responsibly. “If I had COVID, I would still not throw away my masks, I would not go to rave parties … It’s like driving a car where you know you have 90% probability that the brakes work.” (Photo copyright: La Jolla Institute for Immunology.)
Previous Studies Found Little Natural Immunity Against SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection
The Scientist reported that several widely publicized previous studies raised concerns that immunity from natural infection was fleeting, perhaps dwindling in weeks or months. And a United Kingdom study published in Nature Microbiology found that COVID-19 generated “only a transient neutralizing antibody response that rapidly wanes” in patients who exhibited milder infection.
Daniel M. Davis, PhD, Professor of Immunology at the University of Manchester, says more research is needed before scientists can know for certain how long COVID-19 immunity lasts after natural infection.
“Overall, these results are interesting and provocative, but more research is needed, following large numbers of people over time. Only then, will we clearly know how many people produce antibodies when infected with coronavirus, and for how long,” Davis told Newsweek.
While additional peer-reviewed studies on the body’s immune response to COVID-19 will be needed, this latest study from the La Jolla Institute for Immunity may help guide clinical laboratories and in vitro diagnostic companies that are developing serological antibody tests for COVID-19 and lead to more definitive answers as to how long antibodies confer protective immunity.
At issue is ability of biotech companies to hold patents on genes that might be used in clinical laboratory testing
Patents involving human genes have always been controversial among pathologists and clinical laboratory managers. This is one reason why many in the medical laboratory testing industry are following the progress of the well-publicized lawsuit that challenged certain patents involving human genes that are held by Myriad Genetics, Inc. (Myriad), of Salt Lake City, Utah.
