• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

After hitting oil tankers, Iran targets Navy warships and U.S. retaliates with 'higher economic cost' in new escalation that could transform the war

2

Widow of airman killed in Mideast was told hazard pay and combat-related tax breaks wouldn't apply because 'we were not at war.' A viral post fixed it

3

Despite being a multimillionaire, Suze Orman still cooks at home whenever possible—and says eating out is one of the biggest wastes of money

1

After hitting oil tankers, Iran targets Navy warships and U.S. retaliates with 'higher economic cost' in new escalation that could transform the war

2

Widow of airman killed in Mideast was told hazard pay and combat-related tax breaks wouldn't apply because 'we were not at war.' A viral post fixed it

3

Despite being a multimillionaire, Suze Orman still cooks at home whenever possible—and says eating out is one of the biggest wastes of money
ConferencesBrainstorm Tech

These entrepreneurs say the tarnished legacy of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos has made their jobs harder

By
Jenna Schnuer
Jenna Schnuer
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Jenna Schnuer
Jenna Schnuer
Down Arrow Button Icon
December 1, 2021, 11:33 PM ET
Google source logo
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Fortune CEO Alan Murray hosted a panel of diagnostics entrepreneurs at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, Calif, and quickly trotted out the elephant in the room: the on-going criminal fraud trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and its possible chilling effect on the diagnostics industry.

Following extensive coverage by Fortune of Theranos’s early days and as the company failed to meet its lofty promises, Murray interviewed Holmes at the Fortune Global Forum in 2015. He showed a clip from the session on Wednesday in which Holmes would only say that the company needed “to do a better job of communicating” the science and the data behind its offerings. She admitted no wrongdoing.

A month after that interview, Murray wrote that Fortune contributed to “the hype” surrounding Theranos’s now-debunked claim that it could do comprehensive lab tests based on blood pulled from a single finger prick. Once valued at $9 billion, Theranos was shuttered in 2018 after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said its lab practices were deficient and could even pose immediate danger to patients’ health and safety. Later, federal prosecutors charged Holmes with fraud, saying that she misled investors, doctors, and patients about the company’s services. She’s pled not guilty.

With Fortune‘s mea culpa already offered up, Murray turned to the panelists—Bonnie Anderson, founder and executive chairwoman of Veracyte; Adam de la Zerda, founder and CEO of Visby Medical; Alec Ford, CEO of Karius; and Ashraf Hanna, CEO of Genalyte—to understand how the tarnished legacy of Holmes and Theranos is shaping companies that operate in the same diagnostic space.

Theranos has been “such a big story,” Murray said. “How has it affected your business? And what are the lessons your business needs to learn from it?”

The message across the board: “Evidence matters,” said Anderson. “Every patient on the other side of a test result could be you and the integrity of highly accurate results just couldn’t be overstated.”

Theranos has added layers of difficulty to running a diagnostic company, with some people “much more dubious of your data,” said Genalyte’s Hanna. His company has “resorted to shipping [their] machine out to third parties like the Mayo Clinic or Scripps [Clinic] and run it themselves and publish the results. We have to be more transparent.”

And developing diagnostics tools was already a challenge before Theranos.

“Diagnostics is hard enough. You have to first get the science right, the right way, submitted to the FDA or to whatever regulatory channels that are needed. And then only launch to patients once you know these things actually work,” said Visby’s de la Zerda.

The Theranos cloud may be shrouding the diagnostics field, but the panelists consider the episode an outlier in an industry that’s otherwise built on science and real evidence.

“I mean a lot of people look at the Elizabeth Holmes story as an allegory about Silicon Valley and the sort of fake-it-til-you-make-it mentality,” said Murray. “What I’m hearing from the four of you is that mentality has never been a part of the life sciences. You can’t do it.”

The response from all four: Absolutely not. Lives are at stake.

Subscribe to Fortune Daily to get essential business stories straight to your inbox each morning.

About the Author
By Jenna Schnuer
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Google source logo
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest from our Conferences


Most Popular

Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • TikTok icon
  • YouTube icon

    Latest from our Conferences


    Most Popular

    © 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
    FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.