Health

Theranos Will Close Labs and Lay Off Hundreds of Employees

This July, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which regulates blood-testing labs, barred Holmes from the industry for two years, imposing other sanctions including banning the company from working with the Medicare program. A company spokesman said Theranos would have no additional comment beyond Ms. Holmes's letter. The company had largely made its name on the claim that the device could run a variety of tests on a small drop of blood from a finger tip.

But the WSJ probe alleged that Theranos was in fact conducting most of the testing at its centers on standard blood-testing equipment because Edison's results weren't reliable. CEO Elizabeth Holmes wrote that the decision "will impact approximately 340 employees in Arizona, California, and Pennsylvania".

A California startup offering easy and cheap blood tests to help people check themselves for STIs, celiac disease or high cholesterol levels has again run afoul of federal lab regulators.

Theranos has said it accepted "full responsibility for the issues" at its California lab and had "worked to undertake comprehensive remedial actions", including improvements in quality, training procedures and systems.

Theranos announced that it was appealing the sanctions, but that doesn't seem to have panned out.

The move follows the Wall Street Journal's extensive reporting on Theranos' technology and practices. Ms. Holmes announced in August a new blood-testing device called miniLab, which is about the size of a printer but hasn't been approved by regulators.

Wednesday's announcement essentially shuts down the consumer-focused operations that were at the heart of the vision Holmes promoted.

While Wednesday's announcement did not address the status of various investigations into the company, including one by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ms. Holmes appeared to try to address concerns that Theranos was overly secretive about its technology, as well as the skepticism among numerous scientists who saw her presentation in August.

According to Dow Jones, Theranos still faces federal criminal and civil investigations over whether the unlisted company misled investors. The company has denied any wrongdoing. Theranos has continued to contest the allegations against it.

stayontheblack.com

Theranos Will Close Labs and Lay Off Hundreds of Employees