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Founder of Theranos, a now-defunct health technology corporation, initially thought as a breakthrough health-tech company but touted later infamous for its false claims of devising a new system of blood test that required very little amount of blood, Elizabeth Holmes, 35, alongside her former second-in-command Ramesh Sunny Balwani, 54, were ordered on last Friday, the 28th of June 2019, to stand trial next year on fraud charges about their claims to have developed a new blood-testing technology, court documents revealed.
Following a hearing on the district court of the San Jose, California, US District Judge Edward Davila had set trial date for Holmes and Ramesh Sunny Balwani on July 28th, 2020, however, Davilla had ordered the trial to begin by August next year, which is expected to last for about three months.
In fact, about 11 lawsuits were filed against Holmes and Balwani on conspiracy and wire fraud, however, they had pleaded not guilty. Holmes, a Stanford University dropout, had started Theranos at the age of 19 and was once contemplated as a rising star of Silicon Valley.
Besides, Forbes Magazine had anointed her America’s youngest female billionaire back in 2015. Nonetheless, questions were raised on Theranos, once hailed as one of the most promising health tech start-up on Silicon Valley, after Wall Street Journal had started to query about accuracy and reliability of Holmes’ signature blood-testing device in a series of article back in 2015, which had set out a series of state and federal investigations and brought down the company.
In March 2018, a civil charge brought against Holmes by US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), had barred her from chairing any public company for ten years.