Billy Evans, the partner of convicted Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, is seeking to raise at least US$50 million for a new diagnostics startup called Haemanthus, which claims to offer a “radically new approach to health testing.” The company reportedly claims its prototype device can analyse small samples of blood, saliva, urine, or sweat for early signs of disease using just a drop or two of fluid.
Yes, it’s uncannily similar to the now-infamous Theranos device which Holmes claimed accurately run hundreds tests using a single drop of blood.
Once lauded as an icon of Silicon Valley techno-optimism, Holmes is now serving an 11-year sentence for defrauding investors after the underlying tech of her US$9 billion company was found to be more science fiction than fact.
Haemanthus’s approach is based on Raman spectroscopy, a laser-based technique that detects molecular signatures by measuring how light scatters when it hits biological samples. The company holds a patent describing a system designed to identify biomarkers in bodily fluids.
The method is markedly different from Theranos, which relied on microfluid cartridges to run traditional blood tests on a miniaturised lab-on-a-chip. But in practice, Haemanthus appears to echo the same ambition: delivering fast, minimally invasive media diagnostics in a small form factor.
According to reporting from the New York Times, Haemanthus has already circulated a fundraising pitch deck to prospective investors. The document outlines plans to test animals initially before expanding into human healthcare. That move may be a strategic attempt to avoid the tighter regulatory oversight that comes with human diagnostics. In fact, the Times reported that Haemanthus’s pitch deck contained a claim that there was “no regulatory oversight” of the company’s device in its current form.
Longer term, the company reportedly plans to shrink the device into a wearable form for continuous health monitoring in humans.
Evans is heir to a hotels fortune and father of two children with Holmes. The pair met during Theranos’s downswing and he has remained publicly supportive of Holmes throughout her prosecution and incarceration.
The shadow of the Theranos founder’s fraud conviction looms large over the project although multiple outlets have reported Holmes may still be offering behind-the-scenes advice.
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