Utilitarian viewpoint suggests that something is moral or ethical if it can produce the greatest amount of

happiness for the greatest number of stakeholders. Considering Theranos case, several different types of
stakeholders were involved. In the commencing stages of Theranos, corporations such as Walgreen's,
Safeway, as well as Capital Blue co-partnered with Theranos by investing enormous money into the
company. Not to mention, regular patients were also deeply affected by this so-called ground breaking
technology. Also, Theranos as they stated, did not made any of the devices themselves but instead
tweaked the devices that were acquired from Siemens making Siemens as their major stakeholder as well.
Taking a look at the bigger picture, it is apparent that very few of the stakeholders were able to seek
happiness from startup of this company. Theranos eventually lost not only its own value but also all of the
invested capital from giant conglomerate stores such as Walgreen's, Safeway and Capital Blue making
them unhappy as they were enrolled in a contract to use Theranos devices. Unhappiness is not only
limited to these corporations, rather the main victims to this fallacious technology were patients as well as
their doctors who relied on the results from these faulty devices and followed treatment based on the
preceding's. Siemens however were the only one to benefit from all this. Not only were they able to
expand their sales and in turn their revenue but also were not found guilty to any charges imposed on
Theranos. Putting it breifly, in the eyes of a “pure” Utilitarian, Theranos case seems to be unethical, due
to the fact that it made most of its crucial stakeholders unhappy as a whole.
Deontology is the ethical theory that suggest the morality lies in the fact that whether the performed
action is right or wrong in the judgement of law rather than the consequences that it can bring. When
analyzing this case, at first it looks ethical from a deontologist viewpoint. Theranos were originally not
charged by any regulatory body I.e. FDA or the CLIA, suggesting that they were acting within the
constraints of the law. However, upon close examination, there were a number of things that Theranos did
wrong in the judgement of law. Theranos claimed to have created a device that could run a full range of
test, requiring only a drop or two of blood sample. However, this was not true, as Theranos machines
were able to perform only a selective number of tests. Secondly the company claimed that they developed
their own machines from the scratch, which again was not true as the machine were originally acquired
from German conglomerate company “Siemens” which were hacked and modified so as to accommodate
small samples of blood. Theranos also claimed that their technology has been adopted by various
pharmaceutical companies. The reports on clinical studies that were given to the investors were actually
written by Theranos employees with logos of several pharmaceutical companies being placed on the
original document. This made investors believe this spurious technology. Also, Theranos made their
investors belief that they did not require any FDA approval by claiming that they belonged to the
category, which is known as LDT’s. Nevertheless, they required FDA approval. Not only did their own
partners informed Theranos that it needed approval from US pharmaceutical regulators, but employees of
FDA did too. In a nutshell, a pure deontologist will see this case as unethical considering the number of
things that Theronas went wrong with.
In my opinion, the company never operated in the circumference of law and neither did their intentions.
More importantly this was a health care industry that Elisabeth Homes targeted so the consequences of
failure were not only limited to the company itself, rather patients who expected credible results from
these devices did also fall victims at the hands of this fallacious technology. Holmes may have avoided
these challenges by more actively and proactively engaging the scientific community. She should have
included enough qualified scientists and medical experts on board and also have appointed an active and
qualified chief medical and chief scientific officer. More importantly, Theranos should have anticipated
that independent scientists will evaluate and potentially question the device that was yet to be developed.
Adding to this, through my viewpoint, it is unethical for any start-up to guarantee a product that they
vision until they have produced it. Rather they should prove their vision for the product based on logical
reasoning and credible documents to the investors in order to avoid future discrepancies.