If things were not already difficult enough for Theranos, the health technology company, the Wall Street Journal reports that a $350 million partnership with Safeway ended more than a year ago.
Code named T-Rex at Safeway, the previously unknown partnership was going to be part of Safeway s big push into the wellness market, the Journal reports.
The grocery store chain built wellness centers in about 800 stores, but the relationship dissolved and has been dormant for the past year, it says.
The article quotes unnamed Safeway executives saying that there were questions about the accuracy of Theranos results from its finger-prick blood tests, which were given to employees at Safeway s Pleasanton headquarters.
One executive received results that indicated he had prostate cancer, but the results were not accurate, the story said.
Theranos told the Journal that the information the reporter presented about it was inaccurate and defamatory.
For Theranos, the report about the failed Safeway partnership comes as the company is struggling to regain its footing after a series of articles by the Journal questioning the company s technology and the accuracy of its tests.
Perhaps more interesting is that Safeway did not report to its shareholders that it had spent $350 million on the partnership with Theranos. The Journal points out that that amount was more than half of its $596.5 million net income in 2012. A Safeway executive said that the company had also invested $10 million in Theranos.
Last month, I wrote in a column that the company and Elizabeth Holmes, its CEO, needed to be super transparent at this difficult juncture.
Linda Avey, co-founder of the genetics testing firm 23andMe, recently echoed that call, saying Theranos should go the transparent route, Business Insider reported.
23andMe also came under scrutiny after the FDA issued a warning letter to the genetic testing firm, which caused it to scale back some of its testing.
But 23andMe made a comeback. According to Avey, who left the firm in 2009:
Show the data. Put the data out there. Be transparent. There s no getting around that in the industry.
Above: Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
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