Theranos & Elizabeth, The Downfall

Elizabeth Holmes is a famous actress. She’s interesting, isn’t she? She’s so interesting. Elizabeth went to St. John’s School, Houston in Texas during her high-school years. 

Halfway through high school, her parents had arranged Mandarin Chinese tutoring at home for her. She then began attending Stanford University.

She was very intelligent and ambitious. It’s a fact. Elizabeth attended Stanford in 2002 to study chemical engineering. By 2004, she dropped out and used the tuition money from Stanford to fund a consumer healthcare technology company.

Driven by her fear of needles, and the loss of her uncle early to cancer, Elizabeth wanted to change how blood tests are performed.

Elizabeth presented her idea to Professor, who replied: “I don’t think your idea is going to work” claiming it was impossible.

But Elizabeth didn’t give up and convinced the Dean of the School of Engineering to back her. Elizabeth’s professor told her that she couldn’t make the idea work. She was right, but Elizabeth did not give up. She convinced the Dean of the School of Engineering of her idea.

In 2003, Elizabeth named her company Fernos – a combination therapy and diagnosis – and Dean Channing Robertson was the first member of the board. He introduced Elizabeth to venture investors.

Elizabeth raised more than $6 million by December 2004. She was running her Company stealthily. Keep everything secretive.

This device was called a NANO Tanner and it was used to collect blood by pricking the finger. The Edison machine would test the blood, but it was not proven to work.

Investors continued to pour money into the business. Elizabeth Holm announced in September 2013 a partnership between Walgreens and a collection center for blood samples. She claimed that a variety of health problems could be detected using just a little Blood.

Sunny Balwani Sunny Balwani was the former chief operating officer and president of Theranos, but he was dating Elizabeth at that time. The public was not informed.

Sonny has no background in Biological Sciences and medical devices, which can be a problem when working together to create medical devices. 

Sunny and Elizabeth have the perfect example of faking it until you make it. This machine, even though it sounds amazing, did not work.

John Kerry, of the Wall Street Journal, started an investigation following a tip received from a medical specialist and also spoke with former employees of their notes.

Elizabeth found out about John’s investigation and tried to stop him from publishing his findings with the assistance of her attorney.

In October 2015, an article was published despite threats of legal action, detailing Edison’s inaccurate results and the fact that the company didn’t test the samples using the Edison.

Elizabeth Holmes Theranos used traditional machines. Elizabeth then denied all claims and promised that the company would release data on its accuracy. 

This is a major issue, as multiple people have been misinformed about their health. For example, a test that showed a woman had a miscarriage, when in fact she hadn’t, or a result indicating a man had cancer when he didn’t, were both wrongly reported by July 2016.

Following inspections, Elizabeth was prohibited from operating or directing any blood testing services for two years. Walgreens terminated its relationship with Theranos in March 2018 and closed its entire in-store blood collection center.

Elizabeth and Sunny were charged with fraud after they took more than 700,000,000 from investors by advertising a false product. The company was accused of fraud for falsely claiming that its technology was used in combat by the US Department of Defense.

At its peak in 2015, Situations had over 800 employees. This number dropped to about 20 in 2018, and the majority of those remaining were laid off in 2018. 

Sunny and Elizabeth, both of whom pleaded not guilty in July 2018, were charged with 9 counts of fraud by wire and 2 counts of conspiracy. 

Elizabeth had resigned as CEO on January 3, 2022, and her relationship with Sunny was already over. Elizabeth was found guilty of four counts of defrauding investors.

Three counts of wire fraud, and one count for conspiracy to commit wire theft. She is currently out on bail and awaiting her sentencing. She could face a maximum of 20 years behind bars and a fine of up to 250,000 dollars for each count. 

Sonny’s case is expected to start in March 2022, while her sentencing will be on September 26th. At this point, their nose is worth $0.00. Elizabeth has married and is living with her husband as she awaits sentencing.

You’ll be fascinated to see what she receives. Please leave a comment below with your ideas. This was interesting to me because it is a different kind of true crime. Let me know what you think.