Head Games

💡 Did You Know?

While at the biotech company McGee points out a new type of microchip that is supposed to be able to run a full battery of medical tests from a single drop of blood; Parker replies by saying "fool me once, Theranos anyone?" He is referring to the former health technology company Theranos Inc., founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes, a Stanford School of Engineering dropout. Theranos claimed to be developing a new device about the same size as a blood glucose meter that could perform a range of tests from a single drop of blood from a finger stick. Holmes brought in a partner in the company, Sunny Balwani, and together over the next decade raised over $700 million dollars from venture capitalists and private investors, by 2014 the company was valued at $10 billion. In 2015 third party investigations discovered that the device Theranos developed did not work and was a total fabrication, it did not function at all. The company was investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Attorney General's office for fraud, by 2016 the company had lost all of its value due to lawsuits and asset seizures from the government and was dissolved in 2018. The SEC charged the company as well as Holmes and Balwani with fraud in 2018, the Attorney General also charged Holmes and Balwani with wire fraud and conspiracy. In January 2022 Holmes was convicted on four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in prison, Balwani was convicted on 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy in July and sentenced to 12 years and 11 months in prison with three years probation following release.