Trial slated for ’20 for former Theranos CEO

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Elizabeth Holmes will go on trial next summer to face criminal fraud charges for allegedly defrauding investors, doctors and the public as the head of the once-heralded blood-testing startup Theranos.

U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila ruled Friday that the trial against Holmes and Ramesh Balwani, Theranos’ former chief operating officer, will start July 28, 2020.

Prosecutors say Holmes and Balwani deliberately misled investors, policymakers and the public about the accuracy of Theranos’ technologies.

The two pleaded not guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. If convicted, they could each face maximum penalties of 20 years in prison and a $2.75 million fine, plus possible restitution, the Department of Justice said.

Holmes dropped out of Stanford University at 19 to found Theranos in 2003, pitching its technology as a cheaper way to run dozens of tests with just a few droplets of blood.

Theranos shared very little about its blood-testing machine with the public or the medical community.

But investors bought what Holmes was selling and poured hundreds of millions of dollars in the company. At one time, Theranos was worth more than $10 billion, and Holmes the nation’s youngest self-made female billionaire.

But an investigation by The Wall Street Journal in 2015 found that Theranos’ technology was inaccurate at best, and that the company was using routine blood-testing equipment for the vast majority of its tests.

The Journal’s investigation marked the beginning of the end of Theranos. Walgreens ended its blood-testing partnership with the company, and the Department of Health and Human Services effectively banned Theranos in 2016 from doing any blood testing work at all.

Last year, Holmes forfeited control of Theranos and agreed to pay a $500,000 fine to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that she had committed a “massive fraud.”

Elizabeth Holmes