Opinions & Features

Paraphrasing a line miscredited to Einstein: “Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.”

Six months ago, I wrote in Forbes how the Fed’s Inflation fight would harm Biotech. With the FDIC takeover of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) using the receiver, Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara the judgment has proven to be correct.

A looming and avoidable Covid-19 crisis is on the horizon as detailed by Dr. Steve Brozak in a piece breaking today for Forbes. The pandemic emergency declaration is to end May 11 with only “placeholder” healthcare directors in charge.

In May 2020, Dr. Rick Bright, former director of BARDA, warned Congress that, without ramped up coronavirus pandemic preparedness, we would face the darkest winter in modern history. His warnings were spot on, however there has been precious little follow through and that will be a problem in 2023.

I can’t speak to the appropriateness of the prison time. But I believe that no financial award could come close to equivalency for the irreparable harm the Theranos debacle has done to individual patients, the health care system in general, and support for innovation in the field of diagnostics. The damage could not have been greater had they intentionally sought to sabotage health care progress….