The US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Theranos and its founder and CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, with financial crimes.

The regulator says that the blood-testing company raised more than $700 million from investors by making false and exaggerated statements about its technology and performance.

Holmes and Theranos have not denied or admitted to the charges against them. Throughout the course of business, both engaged in a slew of deceitful actions, according to the government’s complaint. Many centered around two relationships Theranos developed with US chains, which are referred to as “Pharmacy A” and “Grocery A” in the document. (Theranos had previously entered into major partnerships with Walgreens Pharmacy and Safeway supermarkets.)

Claim

Theranos was only using their own equipment to perform blood testing.

Reality

It used third-party machines for the majority of its tests.

The government's complaint alleges that while Theranos was representing that its in-house machines were doing all of the blood testing undertaken by the company, it was actually using devices built by others for most tests. It says Holmes directed staff to place the Theranos testing machines in locations where blood testing was being done ahead of tours through those areas. It also notes that the company would provide copies of news articles that said the company did all of its testing on its own machines even though the company knew the articles were incorrect.

Claim

Certain pharmaceutical companies had endorsed Theranos's technology.

Reality

They had not.

Two reports on clinical studies, included in a binder given to investors, were written by Theranos employees, according to the complaint. The placement of pharmaceutical company logos on the documents led investors to believe they were written by the pharma companies.

Theranos machines are deployed on military helicopters and used on the battlefield.

Theranos was only part of a burn study.

Across three contracts with the US Department of Defense in a three-year period, Theranos was paid about $300,000. The complaint says the Theranos machine was never deployed in the battlefield or on medevac helicopters. The SEC says this information was important to potential investors because overstating the company's relationships with the US military gave Theranos the appearance of legitimacy.

Theranos was growing by utilizing the revenue from existing contracts.

It was growing by utilizing cash from investors.

The SEC says that in investor materials Holmes wrote “Theranos has grown from cash from its contracts for some time” and made similar statements in conversations with potential investors. The government says Theranos was primarily growing via outside capital investment.

Theranos con't

Claim

Its relationships with a major pharmacy and a major grocer were thriving.

Reality

The relationships were stalled and on the rocks.

While soliciting investment, Holmes allegedly told would-be investors that her company's relationship with Pharmacy A were strong, when she knew that the implementation of their agreement was stalled and pharmacy executives were concerned with Theranos's performance.

Claim

The Theranos tests didn't need FDA approval.

Reality

They did.

Not only did potential partners tell Theranos that it needed approval from US pharmaceutical regulators, employees of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did too. Even after being notified by the FDA, Holmes continued to tell investors that the company's quest for FDA approval was voluntary.

Claim

Theranos had $108 million in revenue in 2014.

Reality

Its 2014 revenue was around $100,000.

The complaint alleges that Holmes gave at least one potential investor financials showing revenues in excess of $100 million, yet Theranos sent financials showing the 1,000x lower amount to a firm hired to assess the value of Theranos's stock.

Claim

Theranos expected to have around $1 billion in revenue in 2015.

Reality

All the factors contributing to this target were falling short.

The government alleges that the $1 billion projection was unreasonable considering that the planned grocery store and pharmacy partnerships were off track, and the other business areas were making few inroads. The complaint states that these projections gave the false impression to investors that the company was rapidly growing its business.

Claim

Theranos had created a blood-testing device that could perform a full suite of lab tests on a small blood sample.

Reality

The Theranos machine could only perform a limited number of tests.

At the very base of Theranos's scandal is the simple fact that its machines did not do what the company said they did. The machines that Theranos had built could only complete a fraction of the tests a traditional lab could do. In instances described by the complaint, Theranos would seemingly pretend that their machines were performing a full suite of tests in a demonstration on a prospective investor's blood, when in fact the machines in use were not capable of many of the tests. Holmes told the CEO of the grocery chain that her company had successfully miniaturized a conventional blood lab.

https:// qz.com/1229656/everything-elizabeth-holms-and-theranos-did-wrong-according-to-the-us-securities-and-exchange-comission/

>>842822

Q?

>>842793

>>842846

Sonoma Pharmaceuticals is a specialty pharmaceutical company that develops and markets unique and effective solutions for the treatment of dermatological conditions and advanced tissue care. The company’s products, which are sold throughout the United States and internationally, have improved outcomes for more than five million patients globally by reducing infections, itch, pain, scarring and harmful inflammatory responses. The company’s headquarters are in Petaluma, California, with manufacturing operations in the United States and Latin America. European marketing and sales are headquartered in Roermond, Netherlands.

>>843109

Like a growing number of corporations, CVS and Walgreens have waded into the venture capital game in recent years, each buying a stake in a Palo Alto startup.

CVS must hope its investment turns out a little better than its top rival. It opted for a relatively safe investment in a mobile retail app, while Walgreens decided to take a reported $50 million stake in Theranos and distribute its blood-testing technology at 40 stores.

Founded by Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos said its Edison technology could diagnose multiple diseases using a few drops of blood. But unlike most medical startups that first try to get their work validated by outside scientists, Theranos was mum: for years Holmes insisted she couldn’t reveal the details of her technology lest rivals copy it.

It’s one thing to invest money in Theranos. It’s quite another to actually deploy the new technology in dozens of stores. According to the Wall Street Journal, Walgreens signed up Johns Hopkins University to vet Theranos’ technology. But the tests never happened. Did the company end up relying on the word of Theranos investors like prominent venture capitalist Tim Draper and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison? Given how the value of their investment has dropped, they seem to have been overly optimistic, too.

In any case, the venture was a public relations disaster.

“We believe it is in our customers’ best interests to terminate our partnership,” Brad Fluegel, Walgreens’ senior vice president, said in a statement.

Full article https:// www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Walgreens-Theranos-debacle-shows-dangers-of-8256868.php

>>843422

Yes I posted it earlier today (can't believe I've been on here all day…:). Definitely think it could mean something…..

>>843530

he was also on Roseanne, he played Booker