Theranos boss Holmes testifies in fraud trial

FALLEN biotech star Elizabeth Holmes decided to testify at her own US fraud trial in a risky defence bid on Friday, depicting herself as an innovator who spent her savings and quit an elite university to pursue her vision.

Ms Holmes faces potentially decades behind bars if convicted of allegations she defrauded investors in her much-hyped blood test startup Theranos – once valued in the billions but which collapsed under fraud claims.

“I started with talking to my parents. They let me take the money saved for my college to work on my patent. Then I went to raise or borrow money,” she told a court in San Jose, California, the heart of Silicon Valley.

Ms Holmes launched Theranos in 2003 at the age of 19, eventually promising self-service testing machines that could run wide-ranging analysis cheaply and on just a few drops of blood.

She dropped out of Stanford University in 2004, saying she “spent all her time on research”, a portrayal that runs counter to prosecutors’ charges that she simply sold a lie to dupe investors.

During her testimony, Ms Holmes, 37, explained her transparency regarding the company’s expenses with an early investor and how she “met with everyone I could who knew someone who worked in pharma or was in pharma”.

She took the stand after prosecutors completed their case on Friday following 11 weeks of testimony from dozens of witnesses.

Testifying in her own defence carries significant risks as prosecutors can attack any inconsistencies between what she says in court and her numerous public statements.

Ms Holmes rose to renown by convincing high-profile backers, journalists and business partners that her idea could be translated into reality and could change the way healthcare worked.

She drew high-profile backers such as Rupert Murdoch and former US Pentagon chief Jim Mattis, but it all unravelled after a 2015 series of Wall Street Journal stories questioned whether Theranos’s machines worked.

Her defence said in opening arguments that she is guilty of nothing more than trying and failing to realise a visionary idea.

Ms Holmes faces charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. If found guilty, she could be jailed for up to 40 years.