#Theranos founder elizabeth holmes trial

Holmes also sought to shift some of the blame to Ramesh 'Sunny' Balwani, her boyfriend and whom she had brought in to help run her company. The defence called only one significant witness, Holmes herself, as it argued the fallen entrepreneur had genuinely believed in Theranos's vision, invested herself heavily in its success but had simply failed. Though big-name Theranos investors like Rupert Murdoch and Henry Kissinger were on the witness list, the most prominent backer to take the stand was ex-Pentagon chief Jim Mattis. That was done without the firms' permissions, and was a key piece of the prosecution's argument that she deliberately tried to inflate Theranos's credibility in order to win backers.Įlizabeth Holmes: The rise and fall of a Silicon Valley star She personally put the logos of pharma giants Pfizer and Schering-Plough onto Theranos reports hailing the company's blood-testing technology, which were then shared with investors. Prosecutors spent 11 weeks presenting over two dozen witnesses, as they painstakingly laid out their argument that Holmes knew her technology did not work as promised and took steps to mislead investors and patients. She was hailed as the next tech visionary on magazine covers and collected mountains of investors' cash, but it all collapsed after Wall Street Journal reporting revealed the machines did not work as promised. Holmes had vowed to revolutionise diagnostics with self-service machines that could run an array of tests on just drops of blood, a vision that drew high-profile backers and made her a billionaire by the age of 30.

#Theranos founder elizabeth holmes trial

The 37-year-old now faces the possibility of years behind bars, in a case that put on trial the line between start-up hustle and criminal dishonesty. They acquitted her of a number of the charges she had faced, and did not reach a verdict on others. Jurors found Holmes guilty of four counts of tricking investors into pouring money into what she claimed was a revolutionary testing system, after a complex and lengthy trial. Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has been convicted of defrauding investors in her blood-testing start-up, in a high-profile case seen as an indictment of Silicon Valley culture.