Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos, the company at the center of the blood-testing scandal.
Founded in 2003, Theranos claimed that its compact Edison device could perform many medical tests using only a small amount of blood from a finger prick. The company attracted major investors, prominent board members, and substantial media attention.
Investigations by The Wall Street Journal and federal regulators found that Theranos’s technology could not reliably perform the broad range of tests it advertised. The company used conventional machines for many tests while presenting its own system as more capable than it was.
Holmes was convicted in 2022 of defrauding investors. Theranos dissolved in 2018, making the case a prominent example of the risks of weak oversight and exaggerated claims in health technology.