Bad Blood

(Axel Boer) #1

reminded Hunter of a groupie who’d flown across the country to
attend a concert played by his favorite band.


When they reconvened at the Theranos office the next morning, they
were joined by Wade Miquelon, the Walgreens CFO. Wade had
negotiated the pilot contract directly with Elizabeth. He too seemed to
be a big fan of hers. Midway through that day’s meeting, Elizabeth
made a big show of giving Miquelon an American flag that she said
had been flown over a battlefield in Afghanistan. She’d written a
dedication to Walgreens on it.


Hunter thought the whole thing was bizarre. Walgreens had brought
him here to vet Theranos’s technology, but he hadn’t been allowed to
do so. The only thing they had to show for their visit was an
autographed flag. And yet, Dr. J and Miquelon didn’t seem to mind. As
far as they were concerned, the visit had gone swimmingly.



A MONTH LATER, in September 2010, a group of Walgreens executives
met with Elizabeth and Sunny in a conference room at the drugstore
chain’s Deerfield headquarters. The mood was festive. Red balloons
with the Walgreens logo floated above a table laden with hors
d’oeuvres. Wade Miquelon and Dr. J were unveiling “Project Beta,” the
code name for the Theranos pilot, to senior Walgreens executives.


Standing in front of a slide titled “Disrupting the Lab Industry”
projected on a big screen, one of the Walgreens executives was singing
along to “Imagine.” To celebrate the alliance, the innovation team had
come up with the idea of adapting the lyrics to the John Lennon song
and using it as the partnership’s anthem. When the awkward karaoke
act was over, Elizabeth and Sunny encouraged the Walgreens
executives to get their blood tested. They had brought along several
black-and-white machines to the meeting. The Walgreens executives
lined up to get their fingers pricked behind Kermit Crawford, the
president of the pharmacy business, and Colin Watts, the head of the
innovation team.


Hunter, who was now working for Walgreens full-time as an onsite
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