Theranos Crime

Equipped with a charming college dropout story, a humanitarian endeavor, a revolutionary technology in laboratory testing, and a Steve Jobs-esque look, it did not take long for Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes to intrigue the nation and achieve celebrity status in the Biotech and Business world. With the mission to "make access to high-integrity diagnostic information... a basic human right"(Topol 2013) coupled with the promise of low-cost-highaccuracy testing and transparency that are all achievable through a simple fingerpick (Leuty

2013; Rago 2013; Topol 2013). Indeed, Theranos won the hearts of some and stirred the emotions of many. After all, what person not entertain the idea of "cut[ting] costs while improving quality"(Rago

A lot of Holmes' 2013 statements have been, at most, only partially realized. It is not a crime to have visions and earning one's way to make them a reality is not a crime either; fraudulence is. Various lawsuits and bad publicities surfaced against the company(Carreyrou 2015b; della Cava 2016).

It appears that the instant elevation of Theranos as the next big thing--an antiestablishment, humanitarian, and revolutionary company from the Silicon Valley(Leuty 2013;

Rago 2013; Topol 2013), set the expectation for the company so high. While high expectations may be hard to meet, they surely are not impossible to achieve; in Theranos' case, the company's vision may be legitimate but the absence sophisticated technology to back this tremendous vision hungergames - ALS320 F16 S2 - A2D1. Page 3 of 5 of revolutionizing and changing the landscape of clinical laboratory medicine could not be helped much by all the secrecy stating proprietary rights as reason. Truly, something so intriguing and promising as Theranos would capture the curious minds of others and lead to a lot of scrutiny(Bilton 2016; Carreyrou 2015a; Carreyrou 2016; Gupta 2016; Krim 2015;