Elizabeth Holmes is an American biotechnology #entrepreneur who gained international attention as the founder and CEO of Theranos, a company that claimed to revolutionize blood testing technology by using very small volumes of blood, often collected from a fingerprick. At its height, Theranos was valued at $9 billion, and Holmes was celebrated as the youngest self-made female billionaire in the United States. However, in 2015, investigative reporting revealed that the company’s technology was unreliable and that its claims had been exaggerated or falsified. Following regulatory and criminal investigations, Holmes and her then-partner and COO, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, were indicted on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy. Holmes was ultimately convicted in 2022 on several counts of defrauding investors and was sentenced to over 11 years in federal prison, with an order to pay substantial restitution to victims.

Contexts

• #felon