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Quick answers
What was Theranos supposed to do?
The company claimed its devices could run a broad menu of clinical laboratory tests from a finger-stick or other small sample, faster and cheaper than a conventional venous draw sent to a central lab.
When did the public case break?
The Wall Street Journal published John Carreyrou’s first major investigation on 15 October 2015. CMS sanctions, SEC charges (2018), and criminal trials followed.
What was Elizabeth Holmes convicted of?
On 3 January 2022 a Northern District of California jury convicted her of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud involving investors. She was acquitted on several other counts, including patient-related wire-fraud counts.
What sentence did she receive?
Judge Edward J. Davila sentenced Holmes on 18 November 2022 to 135 months (11 years and 3 months) in federal prison, plus supervised release and restitution to be determined in the judgment papers.
What happened to Sunny Balwani?
Ramesh Balwani was convicted in July 2022 on all twelve counts he faced, including investor and patient-related fraud, and was sentenced in December 2022 to 155 months.
Did patients receive inaccurate results?
CMS findings and trial evidence included inaccurate or unreliable results from the Newark lab. Holmes was not convicted on the patient-fraud counts; Balwani was. Civil and regulatory files address laboratory quality separately from those verdicts.
Theranos’s public story runs from a Stanford-dropout founding myth through a retail rollout to a pair of federal verdicts. The hinge is October 2015.
The beats below follow the Journal, the CMS file, and the Northern District of California dockets.
Beats
- A founder story and a closed box
Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 and raised money on secrecy and a claimed breakthrough in small-volume testing. Famous directors and investors gave the pitch social proof.
- Walgreens and the consumer claim
From 2013, wellness-center sites made the technology a patient-facing product. That retail step is why regulators and journalists could test the claim against real results.
- The Journal investigation
Carreyrou’s 2015 reporting, using former employees and laboratory records, alleged that the Edison story and the tests on offer were not the same thing.
- Sanctions and shutdown
CMS sanctions in 2016, voided results, SEC fraud charges in 2018, and the company’s dissolution ended the operating story before the criminal trials began.
- Two juries in San Jose
Holmes’s mixed 2022 verdict and Balwani’s sweep of convictions are the legal ending. Investor fraud was proved; Holmes’s patient counts were not.
The story on the public record is a completed investor-fraud case and a separate, narrower finding on patient counts — not an unfinished science project.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.