something else he had to deal with: Elizabeth had convinced Pfizer to
try out the Theranos system in a pilot project in Tennessee. Under the
agreement, Theranos 1.0 units were going to be placed in people’s
homes and patients were going to test their blood with them every day.
The results would be sent wirelessly to Theranos’s office in California,
where they would be analyzed and then forwarded to Pfizer. They had
to somehow fix all the problems before the study started. She’d already
scheduled a trip to Tennessee to begin training some of the patients
and doctors in how to use the system.
In early August 2007, Ed accompanied Elizabeth to Nashville.
Sunny picked them up from the office in his Porsche and drove them
to the airport. It was the first time Ed met him in person. The extent of
their age gap suddenly became apparent. Sunny looked to be in his
early forties, nearly twenty years older than Elizabeth. There was also
a cold, businesslike dynamic to their relationship. When they parted at
the airport, Sunny didn’t say “Goodbye” or “Have a nice trip.” Instead,
he barked, “Now go make some money!”
When they got to Tennessee, the cartridges and the readers they’d
brought weren’t functioning properly, so Ed had to spend the night
disassembling and reassembling them on his bed in his hotel room. He
managed to get them working well enough by morning that they were
able to draw blood samples from two patients and a half dozen doctors
and nurses at a local oncology clinic.
The patients looked very sick. Ed learned that they were dying of
cancer. They were taking drugs designed to slow the growth of their
tumors, which might buy them a few more months to live.
On their return to California, Elizabeth pronounced the trip a
success and sent one of her cheerful emails to the staff.
“It was truly awesome,” she wrote. “The patients grasped onto the
system immediately. The minute you meet them you sense their fear,
their hope, and their pain.”
Theranos employees, she added, should “take a victory lap.”
Ed didn’t feel as upbeat. Using the Theranos 1.0 in a patient study
seemed premature, especially now that he knew the study involved