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The ads for the new blood test, dubbed “the cancer stethoscope,” were designed to grab attention from even the healthiest Americans.
“Did you know?” warned the colorful ads promoting the cancer detection test on Twitter. “1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will get cancer.”
Pathway Genomics, a San Diego start-up, directed consumers through the ads to a toll-free number, where a customer service rep linked them to a panel of physicians, who ordered the test. The company then sent a mobile phlebotomist to draw blood at the person’s home or office.
“We’d do it at a gas station if we had to,” Ardy Arianpour, Pathway’s chief commercial officer, told a reporter when the blood test was launched last fall. The company eventually pulled the ads from its website.
Pathway is one of a growing number of start-ups trying to disrupt the $75-billion medical lab business by selling blood tests and other types of medical lab checks directly to consumers.
It’s part of a new frontier of medicine, where tech companies say they are using data, software and genomics...