Elizabeth announced plans for a new device, the miniLab, touting it as capable of performing up to 200 assays per blood draw. The Edison machines at regional test centers proved balky, and Theranos quietly adopted a policy of shipping blood samples back to its lab for testing on conventional assay machines. She also started a relationship with a shadowy dot-com millionaire, Sunny Balwani, whom she installed as her second-in-command. Problems persisted with the blood readers, but Elizabeth responded impatiently, berating or firing those employees who warned of trouble. Patients would give a few drops of blood from a finger prick instead of a vial of blood from a vein. Undaunted, Elizabeth forged ahead and contacted pharmaceutical companies, the Walgreens drugstore chain, and Safeway supermarkets, proposing that each install clinics within their stores that featured Theranos blood-test devices. However, from the beginning, problems cropped up with the machines. Her new company, Theranos-a mashup of “therapy” and “diagnosis”-was headquartered in Palo Alto, California at the center of Silicon Valley's startup culture. In 2003, Elizabeth dropped out of her sophomore year and formed a company to produce a desktop machine that would assay tiny blood samples with dozens of tests and report them quickly to doctors.Įlizabeth captivated everyone she met, eventually rounding up millions in venture capital and hiring engineers and lab technicians to develop her device, which she dubbed the Edison. As a first-year student of chemical engineering, Elizabeth worked out the basic theory of a blood-assay skin patch that would subject a few drops of blood to test for diseases, a technology that might revolutionize healthcare. Descended from a famous family, Elizabeth Holmes entered Stanford University surrounded by high expectations.
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