Elizabeth Holmes

Elizabeth Holmes

Elizabeth Holmes backstage at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2014
Born Elizabeth Anne Holmes
(1984-02-03) February 3, 1984
Washington, D.C., US
Residence Palo Alto, California, US
Nationality American
Alma mater Stanford University (dropped out)[1]
Occupation Health technology entrepreneur
Net worth US$3.6 billion (January 2016)[2]
Title Founder & CEO, Theranos
Parent(s) Christian Holmes IV
Noel Anne Daoust
Website theranos.com

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

Early life and education

Holmes was born in February 1984 in Washington, D.C. Her father, Christian Rasmus Holmes IV, worked in the United States, Africa, and China as part of government agencies such as USAID.[1] Her mother, Noel Anne (Dauost),[4] worked as a Congressional committee staffer. She has a brother, Christian Holmes V, who is the director of product management at Theranos. Her great-great-great-grandfather, Charles Louis Fleischmann, was a founder of the Fleischmann's Yeast company.[5][6]

Her parents’ work in disaster relief encouraged Holmes to pursue science and service early on.[7] 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.”[8] 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.[5][9] 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.[10]

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.[11]

Theranos

Main article: Theranos

Holmes used money that her parents had saved for her education to establish Real-Time Cures in Palo Alto. Later, she changed the company's name to Theranos (an amalgam of "therapy" and "diagnosis").[12]

Theranos claimed to have developed a blood-testing device named Edison that uses a few drops of blood obtained via a finger-stick rather than vials of blood obtained via traditional venipuncture,[13] utilizing microfluidics technology.[14] Its founders have raised over $700 million from investors, valuing the company at $9 billion, without their testing device ever being subject to peer-reviewed study.[15]

As of 2014, Holmes had 18 US patents and 66 non-US patents in her name. She is also listed as a co-inventor on over 100 patent applications.[5]

Controversy over technology

In October 2015, an investigative report in the Wall Street Journal stated that Theranos had probably exaggerated the reach and reliability of its technology, a claim denied by Holmes.[16] Several clinical pathologists and other medical experts also expressed skepticism about Theranos's technology. A week later, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated that the company's miniature blood containers were unapproved for any test other than the herpes test. Subsequently, Theranos was ordered to limit the use of its proprietary technology to only one of the 200 tests offered by the company.[17][18] It was also revealed that the Arizona Department of Health Services had found major issues in the company's other laboratory.[19]

After Theranos's test results came under scrutiny following the Journal's revelations, Holmes said the company had publicly verified its results against those of other providers.[20] After no evidence could be found to support the claim, Holmes agreed on October 27, 2015 to release data showing Theranos's tests were reliable and accurate. No such data was released.[21][22]

On December 2, 2015, The Washington Post revealed that an attempt to secure a partnership with the US military had led to issues being found with the Edison device and a request that the FDA investigate. Emails obtained by The Washington Post showed Holmes appealing to retired Marine General and former head of Central Command James Mattis to intervene in the investigation on the company's behalf. Mattis would join the Theranos Board of Directors a year later.[23]

Although Theranos was valued at $9 billion by some of its investors, which would have valued Holmes's stake at $4.6 billion, The Economist noted that startups of this nature can wind up being valued as a "fantasy" rather than based upon present reality.[24]

On January 25, 2016, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent a stern letter to Theranos following an onsite survey of the company’s Newark, California laboratory, conducted in November 2015. “[I]t was determined that the deficient practices of the laboratory pose immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety,” the letter noted.[25]

CMS gave Theranos a deadline of 10 business days to prove that the laboratory was complying with hematology-related and other lab requirements. Three days later, Walgreens, which had partnered with Theranos to provide its blood testing services in stores, ceased all testing at a Palo Alto, California location, and ordered the company to process all of its other tests from Walgreens locations at its Arizona laboratory instead of the Newark, California lab.[26]

On April 13, 2016, it was reported that CMS regulators were seeking to ban Holmes for two years from owning or operating a blood lab.[27][28]

Personal life

Holmes ranked number 110 on the Forbes 400 in 2014, and topped the list of America's Self-Made Women in 2015 with a net worth of $4.7 billion.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 Crane, Rachel (October 16, 2014). "She's America's youngest female billionaire – and a dropout". CNNMoney (New York). Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Elizabeth Holmes". Forbes. Retrieved 2015-12-09.
  3. ↑ Abelson, Reed (24 April 2016). "Theranos’s Fate Rests With a Founder Who Answers Only to Herself". New York Times. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  4. ↑ Ken Auletta (December 15, 2014). "One Woman’s Drive to Revolutionize Medical Testing – The New Yorker". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
  5. 1 2 3 Parloff, Roger (June 12, 2014). "This CEO is out for blood". Fortune.
  6. ↑ http://famouskin.com/pedigree.php?name=58650+elizabeth+holmes&ahnum=1
  7. ↑ Crane, Rachel. "She's America's youngest female billionaire – and a dropout". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2015-12-09.
  8. ↑ "Quinn: Meet Elizabeth Holmes, Silicon Valley's latest phenom". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved 2015-12-09.
  9. ↑ Leuty, Ron (August 30, 2013). "Theranos: The biggest biotech you’ve never heard of". San Francisco Business Times.
  10. ↑ "Elizabeth Holmes Biography -- Academy of Achievement". achievement.org. Retrieved 2015-12-09.
  11. ↑ "How Elizabeth Holmes' Billion-Dollar Drug Company, Theranos, Won by Playing the Long Game – Inc.com". Inc.com. Retrieved April 8, 2016.
  12. ↑ "Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes: Young entrepreneurs need "a mission"". MSN. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
  13. ↑ Rago, Joseph (2013-09-08). "Elizabeth Holmes: The Breakthrough of Instant Diagnosis". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2013-09-16.
  14. ↑ Scott, Cameron (November 8, 2013). "Small, fast and cheap, Theranos is the poster child of med tech — and it's in Walgreen's". Singularity Hub. Retrieved March 9, 2014.
  15. ↑ Carreyou, John. "Theranos Authorizes New Shares That Could Raise Valuation". Wall Street Journal. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
  16. ↑ Carreyrou, John (2015-10-16). "Hot Startup Theranos Has Struggled With Its Blood-Test Technology". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2016-05-04.
  17. ↑ James B. Stewart (October 29, 2015). "The Narrative Frays for Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes". The New York Times.
  18. ↑ Dan Primack (October 15, 2015). "Theranos controversy has little to do with 'unicorns'". Fortune.
  19. ↑ "Arizona inspectors find Theranos lab issues". USA TODAY. November 30, 2015.
  20. ↑ "The Narrative Frays for Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes". The New York Times. October 30, 2015.
  21. ↑ "Theranos Chief Yields to Calls for Proof of Blood Test’s Reliability". The New York Times. October 27, 2015.
  22. ↑ "Here’s what Theranos customers need to know". Verge. February 2, 2016.
  23. ↑ Carolyn Y. Johnson (December 2, 2015). "E-mails reveal concerns about Theranos’s FDA compliance date back years". The Washington Post.
  24. ↑ "The fable of the unicorn: A much-hyped medical startup is suddenly plagued with doubts". The Economist. October 31, 2015. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
  25. ↑ "Regulators warn testing startup Theranos over lab conditions". The AP. January 27, 2016. Retrieved February 2, 2016.
  26. ↑ "Theranos Sounded Too Good to Be True—and It Is". Daily Beast. February 2, 2016. Retrieved February 2, 2016.
  27. ↑ Carreyrou, John; Weaver, Christopher. "Regulators Propose Banning Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes for at Least Two Years". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  28. ↑ Abelson, Reed (13 April 2016). "Theranos Under Fire as U.S. Threatens Crippling Sanctions". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 April 2016.

External links

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