Vice President Biden to Visit Tri-City Biotech Facility on Thursday

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday will visit a Newark company developing inexpensive, portable diagnostic blood tests for a tour of its manufacturing facility and a roundtable discussion on health care.

The Vice-President is scheduled to visit the Newark manufacturing plant for Theranos on Thursday at 1:00 p.m. The Palo Alto-based company seeks to make inexpensive blood tests available for use outside a laboratory setting, or even at home,according to White House officials.

Theranos was granted a waiver by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration just last week for its blood test for herpes simplex 1 virus
test. The waiver means that the test has been found to be reliable and accurate and can be used outside of a traditional laboratory setting.

Biden will participate in a roundtable at the facility with health care industry leaders on the importance of preventative health care and innovation and the role of the private sector in expanding access to the health care system, White House officials said.

The event will be Biden’s only stop in the Bay Area this week, and he is expected to fly out again later in the day, according to White House officials. Biden last visited the Bay Area in April for events in San Francisco, Oakland and Cupertino.

On Wednesday afternoon, he will be appearing in Los Angeles at Bobrick Washroom Equipment, a bathroom equipment manufacturer, for a talk on
the importance of increasing the minimum wage and expanding the availability of overtime protections.

By Bay City News

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