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(#13) March 2016: A Federal Report Alleges Quality-Control Issues At Theranos
A 121-page report released by federal regulators announced quality-control issues that may have endangered the safety of patients who used Theranos's technology. Among the allegations was the claim that the company stored blood samples at unsafe temperatures and failed to properly train their employees in testing procedures.
The most troubling assertion in the federal report was that Theranos's test results failed to meet quality-control standards. The company was sending inaccurate test results specifically for the blood thinner Warfarin, which can cause internal bleeding or increased risk of stroke depending on the amount taken.
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(#28) May 21, 2018: A Book Exposing Theranos's Deception Is Released
John Carreyrou, who first broke the story on Theranos's deceptions, released a book based on his research, titled Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. The book delves into the rise of Theranos, as well as the company culture and Holmes's delusions of grandeur.
Carreyrou boiled down Theranos's problem succinctly: the company overpromised their technology's capabilities, and when they couldn't deliver, they simply fabricated lies to maintain their image of a company revolutionizing the field of biotechnics.
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(#2) June 2006: Holmes Is Profiled In 'Inc.' Magazine
Holmes received her first profile in Inc. magazine's 2006 "30 Under 30" feature, though she wouldn't gain widespread notoriety for several years. In 2014, Holmes would be included in Forbes's "40 Under 40" and appear on the cover of Fortune magazine - which would catapult her into the limelight.
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(#8) July 2015: Theranos Receives FDA Approval For Its Herpes Detection Test
In 2015, the FDA approved Theranos's test for the herpes simplex virus 1 infection. Though Theranos had received criticism for its secrecy, the FDA's approval lent the company legitimacy. A Theranos press release extended the approval of one blood test to an endorsement of the company's technology in its entirety:
[The FDA's approval] provides independent validation of Theranos's patented finger stick and... blood testing technology and the groundbreaking Theranos System upon which the [herpes] test is run.
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(#7) February 2015: A Medical Journal Editorial Criticizes Theranos For Operating Secretly
John P.A. Ioannidis, a professor with the Stanford School of Medicine, published an editorial in The Journal of the American Medical Association excoriating Theranos for its secrecy. Ioannidis noted that, although Theranos received coverage from major publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, and Silicon Valley Business Journal, the company hadn't published any "peer-reviewed biomedical literature."
Holmes countered the criticism by claiming the company operated privately to protect its technology from competitors.
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(#21) September 6, 2016: ‘Vanity Fair’ Publishes An Exposé On Theranos’s Company Culture
In a damning exposé on Theranos's company culture, Nick Bilton of Vanity Fair detailed the impact Holmes's practices had on her employees. Bilton revealed the intense secrecy that dominated Theranos; communication between departments was prohibited, ensuring that Holmes was the only one who truly understood the company's at-large operations.
Theranos's negative company culture wrought devastating consequences. Ian Gibbons, an accomplished scientist with multiple Cambridge degrees, was named chief scientist at the company. When Theranos sought to make their technology public long before it was ready, Gibbons vocally opposed the plan. Believing Theranos wanted to fire him, Gibbons attempted to end his life and passed in the hospital one week later.
Rather than sending Gibbons's wife her condolences, Holmes called and requested she immediately return all of Gibbons's files related to Theranos.
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Elizabeth Holmes, who had studied at Stanford University, founded Theranos in 2003 and began to focus on the innovation of blood testing. 10 years later, Theranos began to show off its blood-testing products. And the founder, Elizabeth Holmes, became the youngest and richest woman in the United States with a net worth of US$4.5 billion. She was once an entrepreneurial ambassador. Theranos claims that its new blood-testing technology is faster, more accurate, and cheaper than traditional methods.
How did all this happen? In 2015, the U.S. health regulatory agency officially launched an investigation into Theranos and issued continuous warnings about its laboratory practices. The random tool tells more details about the Elizabeth Holmes scandal.
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