GROWTH STORY OF THERANOS

 Initially Holmes leveraged family connections to gain a foothold:

raised $6 million by the end of 2004.
 The promise and unique idea of conducting a multitude of tests over
a pinch of blood attracted big investors.
 CEO Elizabeth Holmes featured on the covers of Fortune and TIME
 Partnerships with pharma companies such as Walgreens Booli INC,
Pharmacy A etc.
 Theranos valued at $10 billion in 2015.
 Elizabeth Holmes: biggest self-made female billionaire.
GROUND REALITY

 Feb 2015: According to Stanford professor, Theranos had no peer-

reviewed research in medical literature.
 May 2015: University of Toronto professor Eleftherios
Diamandis labelled Theranos’ research as exaggerated.
 Oct 2015: John Carreyrou of Wall Street Journal reported Theranos
of using traditional blood-testing methods instead of The Edison
device.
Edison was reported of producing unsatisfactory results.
 The US FDA reports from 2014 and 2015 found major inaccuracies
in testing of patients.
GROUND REALITY (contd..)
 Even containers for blood collection were found to be not validated
and were accused of not being approved prior to issuance.
 Aug 2016: “miniLaB” was introduced in American Association of
Chemical Chemistry.
Consequently, miniLaB was never able to perform the 200+ tests the
company envisioned.
 Holmes took investors money over the virtual oath of zero interference
from them.
She also excluded investors from knowledge of any ongoing “research”.
 2018: Elizabeth Holmes and Ramesh Balwani indicted by US SEC for
fraud and deceiving investors. Also charged with marketing unrealiable
and inaccurate blood testing methods.