Theranos

Theranos is an American privately held health-technology and medical-laboratory-services company based in Palo Alto, California.[1]

Theranos developed a blood-testing device named Edison. The company said the device uses a few drops of blood obtained via a finger-stick, rather than vials of blood obtained via traditional venipuncture,[2] utilizing microfluidics technology.[3] By the summer of 2014, its founders had raised over $400 million from investors, valuing the company at $9 billion.[4][5] In 2015, controversy surrounding the company’s blood testing process arose after a report in The Wall Street Journal raised concerns about the accuracy of its Edison device. An independent U.S. government review by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported inaccurate testing results and multiple deficiencies in sample handling during a recent inspection.

Elizabeth Holmes

Elizabeth Anne Holmes (born February 3, 1984) is an American businesswoman, and the CEO of Theranos, a blood test company founded in 2003.

Early life and education

Holmes was born in February 1984 in Washington, D.C. Her father, Christian Holmes IV, worked in the United States, Africa, and China as part of government agencies such as USAID.[1] Her mother, Noel Anne,[3] worked as a Congressional committee staffer. She has a brother, Christian Holmes V, who is the director of product management at Theranos. One of her ancestors was a founder of the Fleischmann’s Yeast company.[4]

Her parents’ work in disaster relief encouraged Holmes to pursue science and service early on.[5] When she was nine years old, Holmes wrote in a letter to her father saying, “What I really want out of life is to discover something new, something that mankind didn’t know was possible to do.”[6] When Holmes was 9, her family moved to Houston and then China, where she claims to have started a business selling C++ compilers to Chinese universities.[4][7] At first, Holmes was drawn to a career in medicine, but needles and the sight of blood repelled her. She decided to find another way to channel her interest in science.[8]

After graduating from St. John’s School in Houston in 2002, Holmes enrolled at Stanford University to study chemical engineering, but she left Stanford prior to completing her undergraduate degree.[9]