suspicions seriously were dashed in mid-December 2010 when Van
den Hooff informed his colleagues that he would be leaving at the end
of the year. He’d been offered a job as the CEO of a company in New
Jersey that made temperature indicators for pharmaceutical
companies. It was a career opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
Walgreens appointed an internal replacement, a female executive
named Trish Lipinski who had some exposure to the laboratory world.
Before coming to Walgreens, she had worked at the College of
American Pathologists, the medical association representing
laboratory scientists. Hunter wasted no time letting her know how he
felt about the Theranos project. “I’ve got to stop this because someday
this is going to be a black eye on someone,” he told her.
He also voiced his skepticism directly to Dr. J, but that was of little
use. Dr. J was a staunch and tireless advocate for Theranos. If
anything, he thought Walgreens was moving too slowly. After learning
of the model jet Steve Burd had given Elizabeth, he’d railed to Trish
that Walgreens needed to show her more love. To Hunter’s
amazement, he had even stopped asking Elizabeth and Sunny about
the test results from the kickoff party. He was apparently willing to let
Theranos get away with not producing them.
Dr. J had a powerful ally in Wade Miquelon. A sharp dresser with a
taste for expensive suits and designer eyeglasses, Wade was gregarious
and well liked at Walgreens. However, many of his colleagues had
begun to question his judgment after a story in the Chicago Tribune
revealed that he’d been arrested for driving drunk that fall for the
second time in a little over a year. He shouldn’t have been behind the
wheel of a car at all: his driver’s license was still suspended from the
previous arrest. To make matters worse, he’d refused to take a
Breathalyzer and failed field sobriety tests. The incident earned him a
new nickname in the hallways of Walgreens headquarters: Michelob.
Wade’s DUIs and Dr. J’s blind cheerleading for Theranos didn’t
inspire confidence that Project Beta was in the best hands. But that
was beyond Hunter’s purview. He focused on what he could control,
continuing to ask tough questions on the weekly video calls until one
day in early 2011 Lipinski told him that Elizabeth and Sunny no longer