Yesterday Cassava Sciences disclosed that two of its senior employees are under investigation by federal agencies in connection with alleged scientific misconduct in its Alzheimer’s disease studies.
Tag Archive for: fraud
Lawyers for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and company President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani on Tuesday urged a federal appeals court to overturn their convictions for defrauding investors in the failed blood testing startup, which was once valued at $9 billion.
In a 3-0 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, cleared the way for the nation’s largest pharmacy chain to face claims it violated the federal False Claims Act and Virginia state law.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila set the date on Wednesday for Holmes, 39, to begin serving 11 years and three months in prison.
A U.S. judge on Monday denied Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’ request to remain free on bail while she appeals her conviction on charges of defrauding investors in the failed blood-testing startup that was once valued at $9 billion.
Balwani countered that probation, meaning no prison time, is sufficient, citing his own investment losses in a company once valued at $9 billion, and saying he never sought the “fame or media attention” that Holmes attracted as Theranos’ public face.
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes will serve 11 years in prison on four counts of fraud, according to her sentencing by a federal judge in a California courtroom on Friday afternoon.
Prosecutors, who are seeking a 15-year prison sentence, called Holmes’ fraud “among the most substantial white collar offenses Silicon Valley or any other district has seen.”
When Theranos was formed in 2003, it promised to be the end-all and be-all of medical testing, a one-stop diagnostic shop from a single finger-prick of blood. What it actually did, as the world now knows, was perpetrate fraud on a massive scale, fooling its board of directors, investors and – worst of all – the physicians and patients who trusted the company to deliver accurate test results.
Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, Elizabeth Holmes’ former business and romantic partner and former COO of Theranos, was found guilty of all 12 fraud charges brought against him for his role in the Theranos scandal. In 2018, he, along with Holmes, was charged with multiple counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.