You have a brilliant founder who has a background in the tech (Chem Engineering) and the upbringing and connections to take research trips out to Singapore.
Second, you have the tech: microfluidic assays, and the idea of collecting them all in the same place.
Third, an existing industry that's been content to sit around and charge high prices due to low competition: LabCorp & company.
Finally, a generous funding environment.
Unfortunately, their secrecy is kind of a turn off. How can I know to trust their numbers?
Their secrecy is a turn off - as well as the people who are orbiting around the company. Do we really want the ideologies of the likes of Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld - people who have extraordinary track records of not doing good in the world - to be involved in the next generation of health care technology innovation - particularly its control and application? Kissinger-doctrine style politics and healthcare do not mix.
Rumsfeld was also the Chairman of Gilead. I doubt it's a question of "do we want these people involved?" - the reality is there's nothing that can stop it. They're the ultimate insiders. Rumsfeld can easily clear the deck for whatever approvals you need, and solve any problems you have, just as he did for Gilead. In exchange, you make them richer. That's how the FDA system works. You can't play in the medical / healthcare field without having a devil on your shoulder protecting you from the other monsters that will use the regulatory environment to destroy you. That's also how the business world at large works in general now, ala Al Gore on Apple's board, helping to protect Jobs from the options scandal. It's why Dropbox picked up Condoleezza Rice. It's ugly, but it's what you get when you have extreme government regulation, and when lobbyists can crush you by bribing the right people in DC, all major businesses must have their own power brokers.
Oh please. The FDA loves antagonize Congress about it's independence. Are there shady dealing? Sure, but don't make it out to be some secret cabal who always gets their way through shady backroom dealings.
To me it sounds like you'd love to have some sort of "political leanings filter" on people who do business. If their politics agrees with yours, great, if not, we need to make sure those people don't get into positions of power.
Positions of power are of little concern in a free market economy. The influence that comes with wealth is not the same as having political power, which is power at the barrel of a gun. The problem is, America is not a free market economy.
Hilariously I'm the exact opposite of what your false conclusion proclaims.
I'm neither liberal nor conservative - in fact I'm anti partisan - and I'm a laissez-faire Capitalist. I'd prefer the government be completely outlawed from creating economic regulations, and I believe in the separation of state and economy for the exact same reason state and church is separate: they infect each other. That instantly wipes out all lobbying for special treatment, special laws, and competition-by-government. The government returns to doing what it's only job should be: protection of individual rights.
The US is becoming a fascist oligarchy, dominated by a massive consolidation of select few winners that are then protected by the government from competition; this has occurred in nearly every segment of the economy.
The FDA rarely does anything that isn't shady. It is fully dominated by the mega-corps that can afford to buy political influence, from Pfizer to Merck to Gilead.
I'm baffled by why you don't understand that what you're describing isn't an inevitable outcome of low-regulation, laissez-faire capitalism.
You only get stability with negative feedback. Capitalism is all about positive feedback, and leads inevitably to systems that conglomerate, stagnate, distort, and eventually either implode or blow up.
Where do you think the negative feedback to prevent that is supposed to come from?
And please don't say 'markets' because there is no evidence that I know of that markets have ever done any such thing, or even that a market economy is capable of it.
FDA loves to talk a good game about independence, but they are far more driven by political trends then they'd like to admit. Case in point: in 2008, the Democratic house jumped up and down about the under regulation of medical devices and diagnostics. FDA Warning Letters (a big deal that largely prevents a company from releasing new products) to device/diagnostic companies doubled the next year.
You are dead on. This is also the scariest part of net neutrality legislation. Corporations always end up in control of the regulatory bodies that were meant to keep them in check...
Kissinger's interest would be eugenics. I mean, it was Kissinger who said "Depopulation should be the highest priority of the US towards the Third World". Bet he's gleeful at Ebola
Edit: I assume we're all big fans of Henry Kissinger over here then? I fail to see what his interest in this could be outside of the potential eugenic applications.
Depopulation is everyone's highest priority towards the third world. My dad works in public health in the third world, and one of his specialties is family planning (i.e. how to get villagers to stop having so many kids). When George W. Bush temporarily withdrew the U.S. support for family planning projects in Africa, he got hammered for it by the left.
> Depopulation is everyone's highest priority towards the third world.
Which is utterly misguided if the motivation behind the goal is to conserve energy and resources. The population growth rate of first world countries is lower, however we consume far more resources per child than third world countries do. Calling for those countries to make drastic changes without examining and curtailing our own overuse of resources is problematic and irresponsible. Al Bartlett[1] addresses this in his engaging lecture[2] on population and energy.
If the primary motivation is instead humanitarian, e.g. to raise the quality of life, then I am not knowledgeable enough to comment on it.
There's a big difference the reduction of growth and maintenance of sustainable levels of population (family planning), and depopulation (eradication of/reduction in population).
I understand the arguments of the eugenicists - that there are excess mouths - that "most" people are "useless" - but I do not agree that depopulation is the solution - rather, sustainable growth or steady-state maintenance through education and decreased societal need for redundant offspring.
As the idea of just marching in and shooting people is abhorrent and would undoubtedly be undermined by ethical concerns, would the gentle profiling based on blood and genes of a population, and the "oh, sorry, you can't have that job/child" that this type of technology will bring about not be a "nice", subtle way of steering the population curve in a "desirable" direction?
Hence, I believe this is Kissinger's principal interest in this.
Edit: to be absolutely clear, I am NOT saying that there is some variety of conspiracy here. I am, however, saying that Kissinger understands what I understand - which is that any tool or technology will ultimately be used in ways which aren't immediately anticipated or obvious, and that the very availability of this variety of tech will almost certainly lead to profiling based on the contents of ones blood. If it can be done, if it can happen, it will be done, it will happen. It's just a question of when.
His principal interest is almost certainly that they are giving him money.
Serving on a board doesn't have to be a big job, especially if the company is interested in having you on the board to get access to your connections and influence.
He might also be getting eugenic jollies from it.
(To be clear, I think this is a more cynical story; buying influence is a lot more likely than an aging eugenicist having the awareness and position to get himself on board with a biotech company that might create vastly better predictive medicine.)
Of course he got hammered for it because it was a) ideologically driven by his religious supporters and b) a terrible idea because handing out some free condoms and teaching women and men family-planning techniques leads to a more prosperous and stable environment at every level of society.
Just another one of the many poorly-thought-out policies he pursued during his presidency.
It's been a while since Kissinger said that (1974, as far as I've been able to determine). I wonder if the new stats that show that affluence (the creation of a middle class) results in a slower population growth would change his opinion.
It's not a strange reason. The ideologues in the GOP and some Democrats restrain the Federal Government from negotiating lower rates because these politicians fund-raise from companies that would have to lower their rates as a result of that negotiation.
And some of them are just crazy nuts who actually prefer that companies soak the government (tax-payer) for every cent they can.
You have a brilliant founder who has a background in the tech (Chem Engineering) and the upbringing and connections to take research trips out to Singapore.
Second, you have the tech: microfluidic assays, and the idea of collecting them all in the same place.
Third, an existing industry that's been content to sit around and charge high prices due to low competition: LabCorp & company.
Finally, a generous funding environment.
Unfortunately, their secrecy is kind of a turn off. How can I know to trust their numbers?