Stealth research: lack of peer-reviewed evidence from healthcare unicorns.

In 2014, one of us (JPAI) wrote a viewpoint article coining the term "stealth research" for touted biomedical innovation happening outside the peer-reviewed literature in a confusing mix of "possibly brilliant ideas, aggressive corporate announcements, and mass media hype". These reflections were prompted by Theranos, a medical diagnosis start-up company; Theranos had not published any peer-reviewed papers [1] but made claims that its technology would "disrupt medicine." However, in contrast to the tech sector, in healthcare published peer-reviewed research is essential to ensure a minimum threshold of transparency, accountability, and credibility for the underlying work in the scientific community. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.