Safeway to dissolve partnership with Theranos

Theranos and The Wall Street Journal have gone another round.

But today, as misgivings about Theranos’ technology – which purports to perform a full range of blood tests with a mere finger prick – have reached a fever pitch, both parties are looking to dissolve the partnership, the Journal reports. When Theranos came to its headquarters to do blood tests on employees, for instance, one received a frighteningly high result that suggested the executive had prostate cancer.

Safeway was a big growth opportunity for Theranos, based in Palo Alto, Calif. The project, code-named “T-Rex” at Safeway, hasn’t been publicly disclosed by either company but goes back to at least 2011.

The Journal said the $350 million partnership, which has been dormant for about a year, had been imagined to be an important part of the grocery chain’s push into the wellness market and that it had built clinics in 800 stores that were supposed to offer Theranos blood tests.

Neither Theranos nor Safeway have commented on the story.

When Theranos did initial testing on Safeway employees, a few employees were tested twice-once using the finger-prick method and the other using a traditional blood-draw method.

“We were disappointed to see yet another inaccurate WSJ article, entirely relying on anonymous sources”, said the Theranos statement.

Theranos continued by saying that no extent of contemptuous and deceptive news will halt it from staying in line with its goals and mission.

Theranos added that it is also committed to sharing information with regulators and leading medical organizations. A recent article in the WSJ also claimed that the Edison lab instrument developed by Theranos was handling just a tiny fraction of the tests sold to consumers as of the end of 2014.

Safeway has not issued an official statement and Theranos is still mum about the specific details, which it found inaccurate in the WSJ report.