...at that time, on the grounds that such language is par for the course in High-Tech-Land. Mercury News (may be paywalled) Fox Business 23 November, 24 November. BNNBloomberg. In a separate case, a former Theranos lab scientist, Diana Dupuy, has claimed that she was wrongfully terminated from her job with medical testing company DiaSorin nine days after receiving a subpoena to testify at the Theranos trial. DiaSorin is claiming the reason is unrelated to Theranos. The suit has been filed in US District Court in San Francisco. Anecdotally, many former Theranos employees have reported that Theranos has been a glaring... Continue Reading
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The Theranos Story, ch. 67: the Holmes/Balwani indictments stay, Holmes’ defense strategy fails
...partners and even their board members who had promissory or convertible notes. Duplicity of the multiple counts was not found. Failure to omit doctors as victims of the Theranos scheme; doctors were omitted after the first indictment. The judge did find some lapses in prosecution language. All the dismissal requests for the first indictment applied to the later two. It seems as if the defense, particularly Holmes’, threw a lot at the wall to lessen charges against their clients, and none of it stuck. One wonders how Holmes (who did marry a wealthy man) but particularly Balwani, are affording all... Continue Reading
The Theranos Story, ch. 66: Walgreens and Safeway aren’t investors, they’re business partners!
...building 800 clinic locations in Safeway stores. This was dropped in November 2015 [TTA 20 Nov 15], around the same time as Walgreens halted the expansion of the Theranos Centers. According to reports at the time, Safeway had already built out the 800 locations, later repurposing them for flu shots and similar. Direct investment was estimated at $10 million (WSJ). Safeway settled with Theranos for $30 million in June 2017. The publicly available history shows that both funded Theranos directly in addition to being business partners. Both took substantial additional risk investments from building out facilities to showcase Theranos’ services... Continue Reading
The Theranos Story, ch. 65: Elizabeth Holmes’ “mental disease or defect” defense revealed
...Did Sunny get Blue (in more than one way) on her? Stock up on the popcorn–la scandale Theranos has just gotten even more interesting. CBS Bay Area, Bloomberg News, Forbes, MedCityNews A historical footnote. The term ‘Twinkie Defense’ came into usage in 1978 during the defense of the murderer of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and the better-known supervisor Harvey Milk. While not used per se by the defense team, the testimony of a psychiatrist for the defense that the murderer excessively consumed junk food, including Twinkies, as an indicator of depression and a sign of diminished capacity was hyped... Continue Reading
The Theranos Story, ch. 64: Holmes’ trial moved to March 2021
What a difference two years makes. Once the subject of breathless headlines and breaking news, the latest news on the trials of Elizabeth Holmes and Ramesh ‘Sunny’ Balwani in la scandale Theranos earned hardly any notice in the healthcare press. Only this Editor’s search for an update found information that the Federal court trials, due to the pandemic and corresponding difficulty with trial preparation and jury selection, have been moved to 2021. Pretrial hearings for both have been moved to October and December. So not to further punish our Readers who are dreaming of mountain lakes and ocean beaches, your... Continue Reading
The Theranos Story, ch. 63: 12 new wire fraud, conspiracy, forfeiture charges for Holmes, Balwani
...charges include 12 counts of: Wire fraud against Theranos investors, including conspiracy to defraud investors through false representations of their revenue, financial models, and technology, going back to 2010 Wire fraud against Theranos patients, through representing to doctors that the tests were accurate while knowing they were not Six additional charges of wire fraud through using electronic media and electronic transfers of funds Four additional charges of wire fraud in transmitting through phone and internet laboratory and blood test results, plus payments for the purchase of nearly $1.3 million in ads targeting patients and doctors for the Wellness Centers Wrapping... Continue Reading
The Theranos Story, ch. 62: Holmes’ attorneys request breaking ‘shelter in place’ orders for trial prep, charges shrink–and a coronavirus testing patent twist
...delay which has made The Biggest Healthcare Fraud of the 21st Century old news, whether Holmes and Balwani will serve any significant Club Fed time at all. Law360. CNBC, Observer Another Corona Twist is that a SoftBank/Fortress Investment shell company, Labrador Diagnostics LLC, which happens to own several Theranos patents, sued a small company, BioFire, developing COVID-19 tests. Labrador now states that the patent infringement doesn’t entail the COVID tests but others over the past six years. Our Readers will recall that SoftBank/Fortress was a ‘last ditch’ investor in Theranos in December 2017, collateralized by the patent portfolio. The Verge... Continue Reading
Comings and goings, wins and losses: VA’s revolving door spins again, NHS sleep pods for staff, Aetna’s Bertolini booted, Stanford Med takes over Theranos office
...Talk’) that the 116,000-square-foot office building in Stanford Research Park will now house the Stanford medical school. Theranos had been paying over $1 million per month in rent for the facility. The writer dryly notes that Elizabeth Holmes’ bulletproof glass office remains. This Editor humbly suggests the floor-to-ceiling application of industrial-strength bleach wipes and disinfectant, not only in the lab facility but also in that office where her wolf-dog used to mess. The LA Times reports that Ms. Holmes is also defending herself without counsel in the Phoenix civil class-action lawsuit against Theranos. On 23 January, she dialed in to... Continue Reading
The Theranos Story, ch. 61: Elizabeth Holmes as legal deadbeat
Did her lawyers expect otherwise? This weekend’s news of Elizabeth Holmes’ legal team at Cooley LLP withdrawing their representation services due to non-payment should not have caused much surprise. Cooley’s attorney team petitioned the court to withdraw from the case, stating that “Ms. Holmes has not paid Cooley for any of its work as her counsel of record in this action for more than a year.” Cooley was representing Ms. Holmes in a class-action civil suit in Phoenix brought against her, former Theranos president Sunny Balwani, and Walgreens, charging fraud and medical battery. (When they withdraw, will she seek public... Continue Reading
Health tech bubble watch: Rock Health’s mid-2019 funding assessment amid Big IPOs (updated: Health Catalyst, Livongo, more)
...that??’–it’s time to take a step back from the screen and do something constructive like rebuild an engine or take a swim. Having observed or worked for companies in bubbles since 1980 in three industries– post-deregulation airlines in the 1980s, internet (dot.com) from the mid-1990s to 2001, first stage telecare/telehealth (2006-8), and healthcare today (Theranos/Outcome Health), a moderate bubble never, ever deflates–it expands, then bursts. The textbook #3 was the dot.com boom/bust; it not only fried internet companies but many vendors all over the US and kicked off a recession. Rock Health also downplayed #5, fraud and misuse of funds.... Continue Reading
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