News
San Jose
Elizabeth Holmes (pictured), the founder of Theranos, the bogus biotech start-up she created in 2003 aged 19, has been convicted of four counts of fraudulently deceiving investors. A date for sentencing has yet to be set, but each charge carries a prison term of up to 20 years. Holmes was acquitted on four charges of deceiving patients and doctors. Theranos was based around a “radical advance in blood-testing technology” that Holmes hoped would allow hundreds of tests to be performed using a tiny drop of blood rather than a vial, says The Economist. Otherwise, the company differed little from many start-ups. It raised $1bn, and was at one point valued at $9bn, before it disintegrated “into a vast graveyard of unfeasible ideas”. The prosecution argued Holmes had exaggerated potential sales to investors and trumpeted endorsements from the armed forces and big pharma that did not
