Report: Elizabeth Holmes Destroyed Evidence in Theranos Investigation

Another worrying development for the Theranos founder

Theranos Executives Elizabeth Holmes And Sunny Balwani Return To Court
Former Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes arrives at the Robert F. Peckham U.S. Federal Court on June 28, 2019 in San Jose, California.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

There was a moment in the not-so-distant past when the names of Elizabeth Holmes and the company she founded, Theranos, came with a host of positive associations. At the time, Holmes was the ambitious CEO of a potentially game-changing medical technology company. Now, when Holmes’s name is spoken, it’s generally in close proximity to the words “scam” or “defraud.” It’s not surprising that documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney was drawn to the story; the same could be said for The Big Short director Adam McKay, who has a Theranos-related project in the works.

The complex saga of Holmes and Theranos appears to have taken another turn this month, and it’s a big one. According to an article by Dan Gentile at SFGATE, federal prosecutors have alleged that Holmes destroyed evidence that had been subpoenaed. “The evidence in question was a database called the Laboratory Information System (LIS), which contained three years worth of accuracy and failure rate,” writes Gentile.

The filing notes that the LIS was destroyed in 2018, and the data that had been requested never arrived. “The government has never been provided with the complete records contained in the LIS, nor been given the tools, which were available within the database, to search for such critical evidence as all Theranos blood tests with validation errors,” it read in part. If this is the case, it’s another alarming development in a case that’s abounded with them to date.

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