a healthcare pioneer is being compared to visionaries like bill gates and steve jobs this morning elizabeth holmes is part of the new time 100 list just out her mission is to allow blood testing in every drug store at a fraction of medicare costs her innovation has fueled anticipation in the healthcare industry and made holmes the world's youngest female self-made billionaire let me ask a little bit about you do you own a tv no why not i work all the time and i'm i'm basically in the office from the time i wake up and then working
until i go to sleep every day at 19 years old elizabeth holmes dropped out of stanford she had a little tuition money and a big idea now at 31 she's what lots of teenagers with that background likely strive to become the youngest billionaire in the world is that heady when you hear that you know it's it's not what matters um what matters is how well we do in trying to make people's lives better that's that's why i'm doing this that's why i work the way that i work and that's why i love what i'm doing
so much what holmes is doing is running theranos the biotech company she founded in 2003 healthcare is the leading cause of bankruptcy you'll see her either in a black turtleneck or a white lab coat taking a high-tech approach to blood testing instead of a needle to the arm it's a pin prick to the finger holmes is marketing theranos as a faster and cheaper alternative to a process that hasn't meaningfully changed in decades so how does it work first we've created these little tiny tubes which we call the nanotainers which are designed to replace the big
traditional tubes that come from your arm and instead allow for all the testing to be done from a tiny drop from a finger theranose has struck a partnership with drugstore chain walgreens to build thousands of wellness centers like this one in palo alto every center would offer a menu of blood tests ranging from cancer to cholesterol directly to consumers and every test holm says would cost only a fraction of medicare prices it sounds genius but what about those who say that's not enough blood to do all the tests that need to be done especially if
someone's very sick and you're trying to figure out what it is every time you create something new there should be questions and to me that's a sign that you've actually done something that is transformative when will i have that opportunity in washington or new york to go use a small test like that and find out data for myself working on it as fast as we can i can tell you our next states are underway how are you doing little is known about how theranose tests work which has raised concerns about putting diagnostic results in patients
hands without doctors present how is it that a company that is doing pin prick finger testing valued at nearly 10 billion dollars well it's a really important area when people get a lab test done traditionally in order for that lab test to be paid for you have to have a symptom so the doctor can write in a code on the lab form but if you can drop the pricing really low then all of a sudden preventative testing can start to become possible but i want to press you on this because i think the world is
very excited you've been on the cover of magazines you could transform healthcare not only here in america but around the world with this but where is the revolution well it's in first of all making it possible to do tests on tiny samples any cancer patient any child any elderly person whose veins collapse will tell you not having to have their blood drawn that way is a big deal for as much promise as those tiny samples hold holmes is already known as a very real and rare example of what perseverance makes possible you were pretty young
when you decided you wanted to change the world i mean you put it in writing didn't you i did i wrote a letter to my dad i moved around all the time when i was growing up and i told him that i was really excited we were moving to texas at the time because i thought texas was big on science i think this note said what i really want out of lives to discover something new something that mankind didn't know was possible to do how old were you nine who says that when they're nine years
old i i grew up in a family of people who wanted to make a difference in the world and holmes hasn't wasted any time last week she became the youngest member ever named to the prestigious horatio alger association which recognizes grit and drive you were the only woman up there with a lot of older white men this is true yeah it was but what was so wonderful about it is that these young girls who are in the audience good morning my name is crystal marriage could connect to me as nothing but living proof that their
dreams are possible whenever there is a quote unquote glass ceiling there's an iron woman right behind him and that's why many of the students there were really impressed with her and see her as a role model you know she's got them probably one of the most impressive boards of any startup with henry kissinger and former secretary of state george schultz i talked to henry kissinger who said she is iron willed about getting this done your interview makes me want to meet the rest of the family too but i'm curious did she tell you what the
original impetus was why she wanted to do this you know like a lot of people it's personal she's an aversion to needles she had someone in her family who suffered cancer and she wanted to change and that's where she got the idea from yeah one of the time one hundred one of the time went under announced today yes in good company yes
