Federal prosecutors indicted Theranos Inc founder Elizabeth Holmes on criminal fraud charges for allegedly defrauding investors, doctors and the public as the head of the once-heralded blood-testing start-up.
Federal prosecutors also brought charged former Theranos chief operating officer Ramesh Balwani.
Holmes, who was once considered a wunderkind of Silicon Valley, and Balwani are charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud each, the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California said late on Friday.
If convicted, they could face prison sentences that would keep them behind bars for the rest of their lives and total fines of US$2.75 million each.
Prosecutors said that Holmes and Balwani deliberately misled investors, policymakers and the public about the accuracy of Theranos’ blood testing technologies from at least 2013.
Holmes, 34, founded Theranos in Palo Alto, California, in 2003, pitching its technology as a cheaper way to run dozens of blood tests.
Holmes said that Theranos had discovered a new way of conducting blood testing, one able to conduct dozens of tests with just a prick of a finger and few droplets of blood.
A notoriously secretive company, Theranos shared very little about its blood-testing machine, nicknamed Edison, with the public or medical community.
Holmes said she was inspired to start the company in response to her fear of needles.
She carefully crafted her image as well, consistently wearing black turtleneck sweaters that earned her the moniker “the next Steve Jobs.”
Investors bought what Holmes was selling and invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the company. At one time, Theranos was worth more than US$10 billion and Holmes was the US’ youngest self-made female billionaire.
However, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal two years ago found that Theranos’ technology was inaccurate at best and that the company was using routine blood-testing equipment for the vast majority of its tests.
The story raised concerns about the accuracy of Theranos’ blood testing technology, which put patients at risk of having conditions either misdiagnosed or ignored.
The Wall Street Journal’s investigation marked the beginning of the end of Theranos. Walgreens ended its blood-testing partnership with the company and the US Department of Health and Human Services in 2016 effectively barred Theranos from conducting any blood tests at all.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last