FALL FROM GRACE

Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Ordered to Stand Trial in 2020

The disgraced entrepreneur and her former top deputy, Ramesh Balwani, will stand trial in August for allegedly duping investors out of millions.

A federal judge on Friday ordered Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and the company’s former president, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, to stand trial in 2020 on fraud charges. U.S. District Judge Edward Davila has ordered jury selection to begin on July 28, 2020, and the trial itself to begin in August. Both Holmes and Balwani have pleaded not guilty to the fraud charges. Holmes, whose blood-testing startup was once valued at $10 billion and seen as Silicon Valley’s next big thing, is accused, along with Balwani, of duping investors out of millions of dollars and misrepresenting the company’s capabilities. Prosecutors say both Holmes and Balwani encouraged health-care providers to use its blood-testing services, despite knowing that those services might not provide accurate results. While Theranos was touted as being capable of drastically transforming the health-care industry with its groundbreaking technology, prosecutors later said most of the technology was imaginary, with the company only able to conduct 12 out of the 200 tests it advertised.