Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the fraudulent blood-testing company Theranos, finally stands trial for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud three years after she was indicted. Holmes rose to fame after creating Theranos, a once multi-billion dollar valued company that would supposedly change the medical landscape. However, Holmes falsified data, creating an outward image of success for not only her company but also for herself. Tales of Holmes’s fabricated personality became the media’s focus rather than the company itself. As Theranos’s fraudulent data could have had a disastrous effect on an even larger scale, this trial will hopefully call attention back to the importance of verifying the legitimacy of medical innovations.

In a 2014 interview with Fortune Magazine, Holmes stated that “Over the last eleven years, we [Theranos] have reinvented the traditional laboratory infrastructure with the mission to make early diagnoses and early detection a reality in the context of our healthcare system and healthcare systems throughout the world.”

When asked in the same interview about how the company’s technology worked, Holmes explained that she and her team worked to develop analytic systems and software that was capable of accurately testing for numerous conditions. Her assured response would likely satisfy the average audience member. It was through this feigned confidence that Holmes was able to hide the truth of Theranos’s fraud for so many years.

In 2003, nineteen-year-old Holmes dropped out of Stanford’s chemical and electrical engineering programs to create Theranos. The company boasted healthcare technology that could test very small amounts of blood for various illnesses. Its technology consisted mainly of two devices: the “nanotainer,” a blood collector, and the Edison, the analysis machine. The amount of blood drawn from the nanotainer, equivalent to a small prick on one’s finger, was reported to be enough for the Edison to compare it to medical data across the Internet and run it for various diagnoses. Not only would the testing be more efficient, but it would also cost about half of the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates for tests. Making these tests more accessible would change lives, especially of those with inadequate healthcare, and help reform flawed healthcare systems.

Gavin Wood, the Upper and Middle School STEAM director and robotics head coach, comments that “they [technology companies] are so focused on what they potentially can do that they are selling only what they want to do. And that’s what happened with Theranos. In this case, I think they [Theranos] exploited the Silicon Valley tech investment scene where there are all these venture capitalists looking to invest in companies with promise. So if you’re able to tell these investors a great story…”

In just the first year of its creation, Theranos raised about $6.9 million in early funding. In the following decade, Theranos garnered even more recognition, being valued at $1 billion in 2010 and peaking at $10 billion in 2015.

With this support, Theranos was able to set up “wellness centers” in Walgreens pharmacies in Arizona, California, and Pennsylvania starting in 2013. People would be able to receive diagnostic tests from Theranos at these stores. Through lobbying, state governments also allowed patients to order these tests without a doctor’s note.

While the company made claims that its technology was producing promising results, Theranos was never transparent about how this revolutionary technology worked. In December 2014, it was revealed that the technology had never been submitted for peer review in medical journals, a critical measure in preventing flawed information and products from circulating. Peer review is the common process of having one’s work evaluated by qualified professionals. Being peer-reviewed and approved can lend more credibility to research as it provides a more objective assessment of said research. Despite its lack of transparency, Theranos continued to receive funding and partnerships.

Then, in 2015, Theranos began to unravel, starting with a series of Wall Street Journal articles harshly criticizing Theranos. The articles claimed that the majority of the blood tests that Theranos reported did not come from the company’s methodology, but from the traditional practice of drawing blood from one’s arm. In the same year, Theranos received FDA approval for one of its tests, the herpes screening. While Theranos celebrated this win, citing it as proof of the company’s credibility, it was simply one among the 240 tests that Theranos was supposed to offer. Additionally, this approval would later come under review after a former Theranos employee filed a complaint about Theranos’s testing procedures.

In 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a federal body that regulates blood testing, released a report on Theranos. It revealed that Theranos had violated at least five clinical-laboratory regulations. The report said that “the deficient practices of the laboratory pose immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety.” Theranos refuted this report by claiming the investigation into the lab was outdated and was not the company’s main location for blood testing.

However, the company continued to be exposed for lack of quality control and inaccurate findings. In February 2016, the Cleveland Clinic completed a study on the Theranos technology and found that the blood test results were “outside of their normal range 1.6x more often than other testing services” and measurements “showed significant interservice variability.” Theranos also failed a second regulatory lab inspection in September 2017.

Finally, in March 2018, Theranos, Holmes, and Ramesh Balwani, Theranos’s former president, were federally charged with massive fraud against patients and investors. That September, Theranos ceased operations. If convicted, Holmes faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, along with restitution; she pleads not guilty.

This indictment once again brought attention to Theranos but arguably, more to Holmes. Around this time, accounts of Holmes adopting a fake persona for business gain began circulating; these claims painted her as a cunning megalomaniac and an embodiment of Silicon Valley greed. In the male-dominated technology industry, Holmes deepened her voice and wore black turtlenecks, supposedly emulating Steve Jobs, in an effort to perhaps be taken more seriously. This alleged fake voice contributed heavily to claims of inauthenticity and was even documented by the HBO film “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley.” These reports created a new, dramatized narrative, one heavily focused on the wily mannerisms of the CEO. Although charges are often not brought against this type of fraud, Theranos’s clout and the media’s interest in the case ensure that Holmes will be fully prosecuted.

This case is patent proof of the power technology companies wield and how capable they are of deception. Wood states, “It doesn’t take many people to misuse a technology… People trust these big corporations more than we should because we kind of have to… I don’t know if there is a really good way to massively get out the message about the amount of power these companies wield. I think it would be a very uphill battle.”