Founder of blood testing company that faked technology is sentenced to 11 years in prison

Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Silicon Valley medical testing startup Theranos, has been sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for defrauding investors.The sentence, which follows a January conviction on four counts of fraud, represents a stunning fall for a figure once hailed as a role model for women entrepreneurs and the world’s youngest self-made billionaire.Holmes, 38, dropped out of Stanford University at 19, claiming that she had invented technology which could test for multiple diseases from a single drop of blood. Her academic supervisor warned her that the idea was not viable but Holmes set out to commercialise it, and the daughter of well connected Washington bureaucrats proved adept at persuading wealthy patrons to invest.Among those who backed the company were Rupert Murdoch and America’s richest family the Waltons, owners of Walmart. The board of directors of Theranos came to comprise a who’s who of Republican politicians, including…
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