Another grim milestone for troubled tech startup Theranos, once seen as the Cinderella story of medical technology: the company has voided all of the blood tests performed with its signature Edison machines, sending “tens of thousands of corrected blood test reports to doctors and patients,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
On Thursday, medical testing company Theranos announced the departure of its president and chief operations officer, Sunny Balwani, even as a swarm of federal and state regulatory agencies descend upon the company.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have opened criminal and civil probes into blood-testing company Theranos, just days after reports that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services were proposing to shutter its labs and ban its founder from the medical testing business.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are planning to shut down Theranos’s labs and ban founder Elizabeth Holmes from the medical testing business for two years.
Theranos, the embattled biotech company that has seen more than half its board members quit following a tsunami of negative media coverage, is now facing a new scandal.
Biotech sensation Theranos was supposed to be Silicon Valley’s next hot IPO. But late Thursday evening, the company told Fortune Magazine that its board of directors had shrunk from 12 members to five as it battles a perfect storm of negative publicity.
Palo Alto-based Theranos has come under heavy fire in recent weeks, as questions continue to surface about their supposed revolution in blood testing procedures.
As Theranos, Inc. was preparing for one of Silicon Valley’s biggest IPO’s when its pin-prick blood test for thousands of diseases was approved by the FDA on July 15, the company was rocked on October 15 by a Wall Street Journal article citing “unnamed” former employees claiming Theranos inflated its testing effectiveness to the FDA.
Vice President Joe Biden paid a visit to a Bay Area-based medical equipment company to discuss health care on Thursday, wrapping up a visit this week to the West Coast.
