Who founded Theranos, the blood-testing company exposed for misleading investors?

Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos, the blood-testing company exposed for misleading investors.

Holmes established Theranos in 2003 after leaving Stanford University. She claimed the company’s technology could perform many blood tests using only a small amount of blood collected from a finger. The promise attracted major investors and prominent board members.

Investigations by The Wall Street Journal, beginning in 2015, reported that Theranos’s proprietary machines were not performing as advertised and that conventional analyzers were often used. The company shut down its laboratories and dissolved in 2018.

Holmes was convicted in 2022 on four investor-fraud counts. She was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison. A common mix-up is to describe the case as only a laboratory failure: the criminal case centered on statements made to investors, while separate patient-related issues also became part of the wider controversy.