How Is ‘Pandemic’ on Netflix Connected to Elizabeth Holmes’ Theranos?

The new year just started, and already Netflix has released one of the most horrific series possible. Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak is a six-part docuseries that argues a population-destroying flu is right around the corner. But one of its most interesting aspects has nothing to do with how deadly the avian flu is in China. Instead, it has to do with one leader in the space by the name of Jake Glanville and his unusual connection to Elizabeth Holmes‘ failed tech nightmare, Theranos.

But let’s back up for a second. The researchers, doctors, and scientists at the center of Pandemic repeatedly make one point clear. Another flu pandemic is almost guaranteed to happen soon. The docuseries repeatedly references an outbreak that happened in 1918 as an example of what could happen today. During a time when commercial air travel didn’t exist, an estimated 50 to 100 million people worldwide died of the flu, a death toll greater than either WWI or WWII saw. Pandemic also hints that this modern day outbreak could come from China’s shockingly deadly avian flu. Though the virus has been contained in China so far, the disease has a shocking mortality rate with 60 percent of infected people dying.

Amidst all this sickness and hopelessness, Pandemic gives us a hero: Jake Glanville. The founder and chairman of the biotech company Distributed Bio, Glanville and his team’s goal is to make the world’s first universal flu vaccine and offer it worldwide. But Glanville has a disturbing problem of his own. Distributed Bio is completely funded out of pocket. In order to continue his company’s potentially life-saving research, they need more money. And the way Pandemic explains it, the world of biotech startups is thornier and more depressing than you would imagine.

Elizabeth Holmes and her biotech company Theranos are presented as a cautionary tale to Glanville’s dreams. In case you need a refresher on all of that, Holmes and her blood testing company were one of Silicon Valley’s darlings. At its peak, the company was valued at $10 billion.

But as HBO’s The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley summarizes, it was all a sham. Holmes’ revolutionary blood testing device, which was supposed to accurately run hundreds of tests using only a single drop of blood, never worked in the first place. In 2018, after waves of blistering press, the company shut down. Holmes, the woman once hailed as a biotech genius who was supposed to change the world with a company she founded at 19, now faces up to 20 years in prison for defrauding investors, doctors, and patients. Her trial is set to begin on July 28 of this year.

Though Glanville never expressly mentions Theranos, Pandemic implies that his hangups with taking money from investors may be connected to Theranos’ fall. “In order to get funding, they often have to convince investors about ideas that haven’t been proven out yet. And sometimes they do not have sound science to back up their claims,” Ganville explains in Episode 1. “When you take venture capital you either lose control of your company or you lose control of your vision.”

The rest of the series follows Glanville and his principal scientist Sarah Ives after they apply for a grant created by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and CEO of Alphabet. The real kicker from all this monetary hand-wringing? According to Ives, Distributed Bio only needs about $2 million to start a pre-clinical trial with ferrets and pigs. It would take an estimated $10 million to get to the point of human trials. She also believes that their company may be able to develop a universal vaccine as early as 2025.

Of course, all of this is based on speculations from one company in one docuseries. But that measly $2 million trial is something to think about the next time Netflix announces another $13 million-an-episode season of The Crown.

Watch Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak on Netflix