Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday visited a medical products firm in Newark, where he praised what he called a “new paradigm” of advances in health care technology flourishing in the Silicon Valley and stressed what he called significant White House efforts to improve preventive health care.
“Science is going to catch up, in some cases within months … to be able to do so much more for people,” Biden told about 150 employees and invited guests at Theranos, which makes laboratory testing products. “But a big piece of that is making it available, changing the paradigm about how we go about it, dealing with cost, dealing with availability.”
The vice president’s stop in the Bay Area, which focused on “the importance of preventative health care” and the role of the private sector and technology in developing better access to health care, gave him the opportunity to underscore the administration’s support of tech advances coming from Silicon Valley.
“What we have learned is that … government has a role in basic and applied research,” he said, adding that the Obama administration has focused on new ways to gather and share medical data to help companies like Theranos make “cutting-edge investments” in the field.
“We’re going to look back on this period … and maybe we can say we played a little role in prevention, protection and research and improved the quality of delivery,” he said.
Biden toured the facility with Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, whom he praised as a model for “inspiration” and innovation. He opened his remarks offering his condolences to the family and friends of fallen Hayward police Officer Scott Lunger, killed this week on a routine traffic stop.
At one stop on the tour, company wellness technician Tiffany Shu stood at the ready with equipment — gloves, needles and swabs — to draw Biden’s blood. He opted out, greeting the technician effusively but not sitting in the white lounger that had been set up for his use. Theranos has produced tests for hundreds of diseases and viruses, including Hepatitis C and HIV, and tests for drugs including ecstasy, cocaine and marijuana.
Biden later took part in a roundtable discussion about health care with industry leaders before an audience of about 150 invited guests. Attendees at the round table — the media wasn’t granted access — included Robert Harrington, chairman of the Stanford University department of medicine; Amir Dan Rubin, CEO of Stanford Hospital; Gary St. Hilaire, CEO of Capital Blue Cross; Bert Lubin, CEO of Children’s Research Center of Oakland; and Mark Laret, CEO of UCSF Medical Center.
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