Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes faces up to 20 years behind bars

The former CEO and founder of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, faces up to 20 years in prison, having been found guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to an Engadget report.

The verdict, which found Holmes guilty on four of the 11 charges against her, comes almost four months after the trial commenced.

A jury determined that Holmes intentionally misled investors about the capabilities of the blood testing technology at Theranos and is guilty of three counts of wire fraud.

Theranos, once valued at $9 billion (R143 billion), promised to transform blood testing with a device that could conduct multiple tests from a small amount of blood.

Alarm bells were sounded in 2015 through an exposé in the Wall Street Journal that brought to light flaws in the Theranos’ tech and potential threats to patient safety at its labs.

Theranos shut its labs in 2016, and in 2018 Holmes and co-defendant Sunny Balwani were charged with wire fraud and conspiracy in federal court. Balwani is the former president and chief operating officer of Theranos.

The trial was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and Holmes’ pregnancy.

As part of Holmes’ defence, her lawyers attempted to depict her as a young and naive entrepreneur.

“Elizabeth Holmes worked herself to the bone for 15 years trying to make lab testing more affordable,” one of Holmes’ attorneys said in their opening statement.

“She failed … but failure is not a crime.”

Holmes denied the accusation that she had intentionally misled investors, suggesting that investors had misinterpreted her statements about what Theranos’ tech could do.

However, the jury listened to recordings and watched videos of her lying about what types of blood tests the company could do.

Holmes and Balwani were also found guilty of conspiring to commit wire fraud.

Balwani now faces his own trial for the same wire fraud charges, set to commence in February.

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