Huge names, including media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, ploughed over $1 billion into the company in investments. Official documents provided to potential investors featured Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline logos, suggesting the medical behemoths had lent its backing to its machines. Theranos made a number of impressive claims about its device, including that they had been asked to provide its finger prick tests to soldiers on the battlefield in Afghanistan. It was named the Edison device, after the inventor Thomas Edison. Medical device startup, Theranos, was a blood testing company that claimed to have the technology to run over 300 tests on one machine, using a single drop of blood.

She dropped out during her sophomore (second) year, at 19-years-old, to concentrate on building Theranos full time. However, she soon learned from an early age that she was scared of needles – another reason she claims to have been inspired to create the blood testing company, Theranos, which hoped to use a smaller lance to obtain blood.Īfter graduating high school, Holmes elected to study chemical engineering at prestigious US college Stanford. It's said that Holmes was inspired by her great-great-grandfather, a surgeon, to go into the medical field, along with the untimely (and perhaps preventable) loss of her uncle to skin cancer. According to Business Insider, at the age of nine, she told relatives with the 'utmost seriousness and determination' that she wanted to be a billionaire when she grew up – a goal that, for a short time, she achieved.Įxtremely intelligent, Holmes was a straight A student – taking Mandarin lessons and even starting her own business selling computer software to China during her time at high school.

Who is Elizabeth Holmes?Įlizabeth Holmes was born on 3 February 1984 in Washington, D.C, to middle class parents. But, for the uninitiated, who actually is Elizabeth Holmes, what happened at Theranos and where is Elizabeth now? Here’s everything you NTK about this crazy case.

What happened to elizabeth holmes