Amazon announces Astro, a home robot that it swears is more than Alexa on wheels.

21 minutes ago

Erin Woo

We are now on to the commercial launch. In an email that we saw in direct, Rose Edmonds (a development scientist) says that none of the assays are completely thru validation testing. Rosendorff had testified this is significant because they were just a week from launch.

28 minutes ago

Erin Woo

Wade gave a hypothetical where Rosendorff had rotten food in his office, and subordinates complain to Balwani. Rosendorff continued to seem confused, and Wade is now moving on.

34 minutes ago

Erin Woo

We are now … asking about company hierarchy? (Rosendorff reported directly to Balwani, and Young was also above him.) “Are there ever circumstances where it’s appropriate for senior management to have discussions about a subordinate?” Wade asks. Rosendorff seems confused.

37 minutes ago

Erin Woo

Rosendorff also served as Theranos’s clinical consultant. Holmes wouldn’t qualify for this either.

41 minutes ago

Erin Woo

Wade is asking about Holmes’s education. Famously, she dropped out of Stanford. “Based on your understanding of her background, would she be qualified to be a CLIA supervisor or lab director? Rosendorff: “No, definitely not.”

43 minutes ago

Erin Woo

Wade says, and Rosendorff concedes, that ultimately it was Rosendorff’s responsibility if the tests failed and his responsibility to enforce quality control policies and proficiency tests.

47 minutes ago

Erin Woo

Rosendorff is agreeing with Wade’s questioning that Holmes never told him to report an inaccurate result, and that Holmes never directed him not to pause or discontinue tests he thought were inaccurate.

50 minutes ago

Erin Woo

Wade: “Did you ever use a test on patients that you believed was inaccurate or unreliable?” Rosendorff: “No.” Did he ever provide results that he believed to be unreliable? “No.”

50 minutes ago

Erin Woo

Wade: “Did you faithfully dispatch your legal obligations as lab director at Theranos?” Rosendorff: “Yes, I did.” Wade: “Did you offer lab tests that you knew at the time were inaccurate or unreliable?” Rosendorff: “No … I ordered the laboratory to cease testing.”

53 minutes ago

Erin Woo

Two themes of cross thus far: Wade seems to be trying to prove that Rosendorff worked with the government in shaping his testimony, and is hammering home that Rosendorff was legally and ethically responsible for the lab.

53 minutes ago

Erin Woo

Rosendorff confirms that he was familiar with the regulations. Wade is now asking a series of questions about Rosendorff’s obligations: “You are required to…?” Rosendorff says these are his obligations, but “I received pushback from management.”

55 minutes ago

Erin Woo

Wade is now holding up a stack of papers (maybe an inch thick?) and asking if Rosendorff knew all of those regulations, presumably the stack of papers he’s holding. Davila, the judge: “You’re asking to admit the entirety of this document? It’s how many pages? 122?” It’s admitted.

57 minutes ago

Erin Woo

We’re into Rosendorff’s time at Theranos! Wade asked him if being the CLIA lab director meant he was legally responsible for what happened in the lab, and Rosendorff said yes.

1 hour ago

Erin Woo

Wade is continuing to try to pick apart the prosecution’s case, noting that they didn’t go in chronological order through the documents. He still hasn’t really asked about Rosendorff’s actual experiences at Theranos.

1 hour ago

Erin Woo

Wade is arguing that Rosendorff’s testimony in direct doesn’t match what he testified in 2019. Earlier, he just said he wasn’t satisfied with management’s response to proficiency testing. His testimony on Friday was more detailed.

1 hour ago

Erin Woo

We’re now into questioning about the testimony itself. Wade is asking Rosendorff about his reasons for leaving Theranos. Wade asks if Rosendorff discussed that question/answer with the government. Rosendorff says yes.

1 hour ago

Erin Woo

Wade presses him on whether he told the government what he was going to testify.

Rosendorff says no.

1 hour ago

Erin Woo

Wade is now asking about how Rosendorff was prepared to testify by the government. Rosendorff: “I was always instructed by the government to be truthful.” Wade asked: “Did they tell you to give that answer?” Rosendorff: “No.”

1 hour ago

Erin Woo

Wade is going through a list of people and asking Rosendorff if he’s met each of them. His tone is far more aggressive than with previous witnesses.

1 hour ago

Erin Woo

We’re starting with cross-examination. Lance Wade, Holmes’s lawyer, is starting by grilling Rosendorff on how many times he’s met with the government.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

And, with that, his direct testimony has wrapped. We’ll pick up with cross-examination after a 30-min. break.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Ultimately, Rosendorff said, he left after “endless meetings and conversations, very careful study of medical literature, late nights … great efforts on my part to improve the quality of testing at Theranos.”

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Rosendorff testified about why he spoke with then-WSJ reporter John Carreyrou: said he felt a “moral and ethical” obligation to alert the public.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Bostic pointed out the line “We will execute this year.” When did Theranos start testing? he asked. Rosendorff responds: 2013.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

More texts from Holmes/Balwani! Holmes: “This year is our year. We can never forget this tiger.” Balwani: “I know, I am focused on it. We will execute this year.” Holmes: “I know. I’m focused on it too. And for our kids never forget who we are.”

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

On Rosendorff’s last day, he says Balwani offered a handshake, and he declined. Balwani gave him exit paperwork to sign. Balwani said he would be prepared to keep him on, but Rosendorff said it wasn’t worth the risk to his reputation.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Holmes forwarded it to Balwani: “We need to respond to him now and cut him Monday.” Rosendorff had already accepted a job offer at another lab and was planning on leaving — interpreted this as them trying to fire him right before he left.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Nov. 2014 email to Rosendorff asking for a redraw. Rosendorff forwarded this to Holmes/Balwani, and Balwani said the rep “jumped the gun” asking for a redraw. Adam forwarded this to Elizabeth: “I find Sunny’s response offensive and disingenuous. He should apologize.”

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Gov’t trying to make the point that Holmes/Balwani are actively courting investments even as Rosendorff raises concerns about crucial problems in the lab.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

We’re now looking at Nov. 2014 texts between Balwani and Holmes, talking about investments from Alice Walton and Rupert Murdoch. Balwani: “They are not investing in our company, they are investing in our destiny.”

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

“…how fundamental it is to all of us for you or any other employee never to do anything you’re not completely confident in.” Rosendorff says he disagrees with this, and we’ve seen emails showing that he raised concerns.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Holmes’s response (pt. 1): “How sad and disappointing to see this from you. Outside of the fact you’ve never emailed me on any concerns you allude to there before but now email this, you know from every conversation we’ve ever had together …”

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Now looking at Nov. 14 emails from Rosendorff. “I feel really uncomfortable with what is happening right now in this company. Is there any way you can get Spencer back on the CLIA [Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments] license and take me off? I am feeling pressured to vouch for results that I cannot be confident in.”

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Christian forwarded the email to Elizabeth, writing: “His response to this was to do a vacutainer redraw & I ended the conversation at that point.” A vacutainer draw is a non-Theranos retest.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

He continued: “Further 100% honesty and transparency to the patient is essential. “My first duty is not to Theranos, but to the patient as per my Hippocratic oath “primum non nocere.” “I never said I wouldn’t talk to the MD.”

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

In an email to Christian, Rosendorff doubled down. “This is not a question of interpreting results — this is a question of the reliability and accuracy of the result.” “The most constructive thing at this point is to offer reliable and robust assays, not to spin.”

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Nov. email from Rosendorff about the patient call to Christian: “If you’re asking me to defend these values then the answer is no.” He was refusing to defend the accuracy of the result, Rosendorff testifies.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Emails like this contributed to a “crescendo” of issues, Rosendorff testifies, leading to his resignation in Nov. 2014.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Looking at an email from a medical assistant concerned that HDL and LDL (cholesterol) readings are not adding up. That raises concerns about the accuracy of the test, Rosendorff testifies.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

In a follow-up email from Holmes: “Kerry please delineate this based on what we did with the NY inspector recently and send that out.” No one was allowed to enter or exit the Normandy lab during the visit, Rosendorff said. Those directions came from Balwani.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

1/26/13 email from Holmes about the upcoming audit from the California Dept. of Public Health: “Let me know if the path for walking the auditors in and downstairs has been cemented so we avoid areas that cannot be accessed, and what that path is.”

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Christian forwarded the message to Daniel Young and cc’d Elizabeth. In a later email to Elizabeth and Daniel, Christian wrote that Rosendorff already approved the redraw. “Need to discuss messaging for my call with this doc, with regard to reason for the redraw,” Christian wrote.

2 hours ago

Erin Woo

Now looking at an email to Christian Holmes to approve a redraw, despite his not having a position in the clinical lab or a medical/science background. Rosendorff says he wasn’t aware Christian was involved in approving redraws.

3 hours ago

Erin Woo

Now onto discussing transparency. “I felt a conflict between the messaging that the company wanted me to provide … and my duty as a physician” to accurately report results when talking with doctors, Rosendorff says.

3 hours ago

Erin Woo

In an email chain about the proficiency testing samples, Balwani wrote that Theranos’s validation has been “excellent in the past” and that “it is these PT samples that are off.” Rosendorff testifies that he disagrees.

3 hours ago

Erin Woo

There was no formal proficiency testing process at Theranos, Rosendorff says. He says he raised these concerns at a mid-2014 meeting to people including Holmes, Theranos’s president, Ramesh Balwani, and the VP Daniel Young. He felt like they gave “lip service” to this issue, and there was no progress made before he left in November.

3 hours ago

Erin Woo

Rosendorff’s reaction to situations like this: “Every time we got a physician complaint, every time our QC would fail, every time we had a spate of anomalous results, it raised great concerns to me about the accuracy of the testing process.”

3 hours ago

Erin Woo

We’re looking at an email from someone who has been on coumadin, a blood thinner medication, for 13 years. After switching to Theranos testing, her results came back low, and she increased her dose as a result. “I have not felt ‘right’ since the one increased dose,” she wrote.

3 hours ago

Erin Woo

I’m back in the courtroom for another day of the Elizabeth Holmes trial! We’re starting with the end of former lab director Adam Rosendorff’s direct testimony.

3 days ago

Erin Woo

With that, we’re going to break for the weekend. I’ll be in the courthouse Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday next week — see you on Tuesday!

3 days ago

Erin Woo

For the past hour, Rosendorff has testified about problems w various tests, incl. the potassium, chloride and sodium tests. In a 10/27/14 email, he wrote: “I am not sure of the clinical value of a sodium assay, in which the only time we can report it is when it is not critical”

3 days ago

Erin Woo

We’re now getting into Rosendorff’s decision to leave. He forwarded work emails with issues of concern to his Gmail account in 2014, testifying that “I wanted to protect myself.” He also says he started looking for another job in mid-2013, shortly after joining Theranos.

3 days ago

Erin Woo

Today’s theme seems to be a) Rosendorff was concerned about faulty tests, b) Rosendorff recommended the company stop using those tests and c) Holmes/Balwani were aware but declined to change course.

3 days ago

Erin Woo

We’re now on issues with Theranos’s HDL (cholesterol) tests. Rosendorff says he “suspected” Theranos’ HDL was no longer working as of Feb. 2014 and suggested reverting to FDA-approved devices, but received pushback from Balwani, Holmes and Theranos VP Daniel Young.

4 days ago

Erin Woo

We’ve now seen two email chains including Holmes/Balwani about complaints/issues that Rosendorff wasn’t included on. Rosendorff says he “absolutely” should have been included on the emails.

4 days ago

Erin Woo

Rosendorff is testifying about issues with the hCG tests, which detect pregnancy. In June 2014, Christian Holmes wrote to Elizabeth: “Just fyi-hCG right now causing some serious issues and patient complaints.”

4 days ago

Erin Woo

We’re comparing Rosendorff’s time at the University of Pittsburgh to his time at Theranos. At Theranos, complaints about test results were “much more frequent,” and he “felt pressured to defend the company’s results to physicians,” he said.

4 days ago

Erin Woo

Theranos devices failed so frequently that it raised questions about the accuracy of the results, Rosendorff testifies. Performance of Theranos assays was worse than non-Theranos analyzers.

4 days ago

Erin Woo

Rosendorff is now discussing quality control. As we learned in Cheung’s testimony, quality control happened once a day, and machines would be recalibrated if they failed. This was a frequent discussion topic at Theranos, he testifies.

4 days ago

Erin Woo

Rosendorff had a meeting w Holmes where he expressed his concerns. She was very nervous and was not her usual composed self, he said: She was trembling, knee was shaking, she was very upset.

4 days ago

Erin Woo

In an email to Holmes, Rosendorff wrote that “A few more weeks to sort through these medical and logistical issues, and getting the proper level of training and staffing would help us tremendously.”nd staffing would help us tremendously.”

4 days ago

Erin Woo

An email from Rose Edmonds from 9 days before the launch says “none of our assays are completely through validation including clinical sample testing with fingerstick.” Under CLIA law, the tests need to be validated properly before they can be used for patient care.

4 days ago

Erin Woo

Leading up to Sept 2013 commercial launch, there was “a lot of anxiety” about the appropriateness of using modified tests for patient care. The general mood of the company was “very optimistic,” but some were questioning why Theranos wasn’t using its own devices.

4 days ago

Erin Woo

The downstairs Theranos lab, which contained the Theranos Edison devices, was called Normandy, Rosendorff said. According to Rosendorff, Balwani called the upstairs lab with conventional devices Jurassic Park: Balwani “believed the conventional devices were dinosaurs.”

4 days ago

Erin Woo

Rosendorff starting strong with why he quit Theranos, incl. unwillingness of management to perform proficiency testing and feeling pressured to vouch for tests he wasn’t confident in. Also: “The company was more about PR and fundraising than patient care.”

4 days ago

Erin Woo

The government is calling former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff today in the trial of Elizabeth Holmes. Per prosecutor John Bostic, this testimony is likely to take all day.

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

Mattis is done and now a prosecutor is reading text messages between Holmes and Balwani while a forensics guy from PWC says “yes” and “correct.” I guess this is how they have to present this evidence but it is really really bizarre.

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

On redirect: Why did Mattis initially support Holmes after the WSJ expose and then change his mind? There were too many surprises, he said. “We were unable to help her on the fundamental issues that she was grappling with if we only saw them in the rearview mirror.”

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

We look at Mattis’ emailed response to Holmes after the WSJ article. “Be swift in response with unassailable truth,” he wrote. “I have full faith in our plan.”

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

He also asks if Mattis knew Theranos was doing blood tests in a central lab.
Mattis: “I assumed the central Theranos lab was the Theranos machine.”

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

In cross-exam, Holmes lawyer Kevin Downey asked Gen. Mattis about his qualifications to evaluate Theranos’s technology and be a board director.

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

Initially Mattis thought the problem was fixable — the company simply messed up its messaging and could come clean. Soon after, he began to question whether or not the Edison machine worked. “There just came a point when I didn’t know what to believe about Theranos anymore.”

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

After WSJ article, board members emailed Holmes about the allegations. Her response: Theranos was transitioning from operating under one laboratory framework to another. Mattis: “I was still confused.” At a minimum, “we had a reputation problem here and an integrity problem.”

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

Ominous. After Theranos learned about a 2015 WSJ article by John Carreyrou that exposed problems with Theranos’s technology, there was a board meeting with a slide titled “Duty of Loyalty.” We are shown that slide, except it is comically redacted — all content blacked out — and Mattis doesn’t remember it.

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

We see an email from Holmes instructing Mattis that, in an interview with Ken Auletta of The New Yorker, he can’t discuss “how our technology works (i.e. that there is a single device that does all tests)”

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

Fortune published a long correction to that article, which I don’t remember seeing from a lot of other outlets that wrote positive stories. Parloff is listed as a witness and defense is attempting to compel him to turn over his notes.

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

Assistant U.S. attorney John Bostic pulls up Fortune’s 2014 cover story about Theranos. Mattis spoke to the reporter, Roger Parloff, and said Holmes gave him guidance on what he could and couldn’t say.

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

Still trying to train my brain to not hear “amino acid” every time they say “immunoassay”

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

Theranos got a lot of mileage out of a 2013 WSJ article! We see an email where Holmes sends Mattis the link, as well as a slide of it in a Theranos board presentation

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

We’re going through this board presentation, which has a slide claiming Theranos’s tech had been validated by 10 of the 15 largest pharmaceutical companies, alongside logos of FDA & WHO and a quote from Johns Hopkins.

5 days ago

Erin Griffith

What were your sources for information about the company? Mattis: “Ms. Holmes.” “Was she the primary source?” “The sole source.”

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Mattis also invested $85k into Theranos, which he said was a significant sum “for someone who had been in govt. service for 40 years.”

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Did you accept Ms. Holmes’s invitation to join Theranos’s board? “Yes I did, after asking why. I was not a medical person.” She said she wanted his mgmt. and organizational experience.

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Mattis testified that he was not aware of Theranos devices ever being used on battlefields, military helicopters, clandestine operations…

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Mattis testified that Holmes was “very aggressive” at wanting the military pilot program to get going. “She was very confident that if we got it in there, it would prove itself.” He knew it was a start-up, but noted that Holmes had been working on it for a decade by 2013.

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

oy, another email where Mattis calls Holmes “young Elizabeth.”

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Holmes was the one telling him about the Theranos device’s capabilities, he said. “I was frankly amazed at what was possible.” But he added: “That didn’t take the place of having the device prove itself.”

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Mattis testified the size of the Theranos device and its promised capabilities made it so attractive to potential military use. Accuracy and reliability were critical given the casualties, he said. “The stakes are very high.”

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

In one email, Mattis told Holmes he wants to explore a pilot project to test Theranos machines alongside the army’s existing systems to compare. Mattis testified that he was very “taken” by the possibilities of using a drop of blood for diagnostics.

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Mattis, a U.S. general and former secretary of defense, was on Theranos’s board between 2013 and 2016.

We start by looking at 2011 emails between them after meeting. In one, Mattis writes, “thank you for your note, young Elizabeth, and I wish you every success.”

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

At the courthouse for US v. Holmes. James Mattis has taken the stand.

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Gould’s testimony lasted around 15 minutes – From behind a clear mask, she got emotional discussing her experience finding out via Theranos tests that, after three miscarriages, her fourth pregnancy was not viable. The happy ending is that it was. She had a baby. Adjourned!

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Defense wraps up by pointing out that Zachman’s practice had many many test results from Theranos beyond Ms. Gould that seemed to be fine. Judge Davila is eager to keep going, even though we are over on time today. Brittany Gould takes the stand.

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Defense works to chip away at the testimony by implying that the Theranos test results simply existed on a different scale and should have been “rebaselined.” Also noted that Holmes’s brother Christian, who responded to Zachman’s complaint about the results, apologized.

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Oh my, Theranos offered Zachman a “corrected” version of the results which simply removed a decimal point but the she says numbers still wouldn’t have made sense within the context of a viable pregnancy or a loss of one.

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

“This circumstance was very impactful to me as it stood out as such a red flag for the pregnancy.”

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Gould took 5 blood tests, 3 from a subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics and 2 from Theranos. She went on a rollercoaster, with the Quest test showing she was pregnant, the two Theranos tests showing a miscarriage, and 2 more Quest tests showing she was indeed still pregnant.

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Zachman describes the case of a patient named Brittany Gould (sp?) who had had 3 miscarriages. She came to see Gould after a positive at-home pregnancy test “to establish that yes, she is pregnant and look at the health of the pregnancy.”

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

Zachman was on a committee that evaluated service providers and her practice adopted Theranos blood tests around 2014. Theranos even set up a lab downstairs from one of her practice’s offices, which Zachman said was “very exciting.”

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

New witness: Audra Zachman, a nurse practitioner at an OB-GYN practice.

6 days ago

Erin Griffith

I have enjoyed chatting with some of the trial-heads and and fans of justice who have shown up to watch (provided they’re not moles :). Today I met a retired paralegal who says he was at the Patty Hearst trial!!

7 days ago

Erin Griffith

Redirect up. US Attorney Robert Leach reminds jurors that when Gangakhedkar resigned from Theranos, she had concerns about the reliability of Theranos’s tests and discussed them with Holmes.

7 days ago

Erin Griffith

More bad boss/good boss content: We see an email Gangakhedkar sent to Balwani defending how hard her team was working + an email she sent to her team praising their long hours. She then resigned from Theranos and Holmes attempted to get her to stay, offering time off.

7 days ago

Erin Griffith

Defense previously showed that Holmes let Gangakhedkar go to India to see family, painting her as a sympathetic boss and Balwani as the aggressive one. “[Balwani’s] trying to make you feel guilty that you weren’t working?” “Yes” “You were frustrated by that?” “Yes.”

7 days ago

Erin Griffith

We are still doing cross-examination of Gangakhedkar.

Wade shows an email from the former Theranos president, Ramesh Balwani (who goes by Sunny), chastising the lab workers for not working as hard as his software team, painting him as the one pushing unrealistically for overwork.

7 days ago

Erin Griffith

Zachman will now offer expert testimony on interpreting HCG tests (a hormone used to identify pregnancy status)

You expect HCG levels to double every 48 hours or so in early pregnancy.

7 days ago

Erin Griffith

Wade goes on a run of questions (peppered with “yes” responses by Gangakhedkar) arguing that the point of R&D is encountering issues and setbacks and fixing them.

“In R&D sometimes you have to fail before you can succeed right?”
“Yes.”

7 days ago

Erin Griffith

We see an email where Holmes asked Gangakhedkar for some testing data ahead of a meeting with the DoD. Gangakhedkar emails that Vitamin D data isn’t ready and Holmes writes asking for data on other tests. The point is, apparently, look at this example of Holmes not doing fraud.

7 days ago

Erin Griffith

The Defense strategy re: Theranos lab problems seems to be: look, real work was being done; there were processes in place that sure seemed rigorous; the very people pointing out problems also signed off on it all.

7 days ago

Erin Griffith

So far it’s basically a call and response, where Wade describes work of Gangakhedkar + Theranos’s lab, and Gangakhedkar replies “yes.” “Were you proud of that work?” “Yes.” “And others at the company were happy about that work as well?” “I think so.”

7 days ago

Erin Griffith

Back in the San Jose courtroom today for more US v Holmes. Surekha Gangakhedkar, a scientist at Theranos, is back on the stand being cross-examined by Holmes’s lawyer Lance Wade.

10 days ago

Erin Woo

With that, Judge Davila is ending Gangakhedkar’s testimony for the day and instructing jurors not to consume media content about the trial, as always. The trial will resume on Tuesday — Erin Griffith will be at the courthouse to bring you live updates.

10 days ago

Erin Woo

We are now onto cross-examination. Holmes’s lawyer is questioning her about G.S.K.’s study of Theranos’s assays, pointing out that the study promoted her work. “The Theranos system eliminates the need for a lab and provided quality data,” the G.S.K. memo said.

10 days ago

Erin Woo

Despite having signed an N.D.A., Gangakhedkar printed out some documents and took them home when she left Theranos. “I was worried that I would be blamed,” she testified.

10 days ago

Erin Woo

Three days after the email from Balwani, Gangakhedkar sent Holmes her resignation email. She testified that she was “very stressed and unhappy and concerned” with the planning of the Walgreens launch.

10 days ago

Erin Woo

In an email from Balwani to Gangakhedkar, with Holmes copied, Balwani said the software team had been working until 3:07 a.m., but that the Edison blood-testing devices Gangakhedkar’s team worked on were “all sitting idle.” This was an example of the pressure they were under, Gangakhedkar said.

11 days ago

Erin Woo

And, with that, Cheung has been dismissed. The government is calling Surekha Gangakhedkar now, a former Theranos team manager.

11 days ago

Erin Woo

The government is now asking questions about a document that says, among other things, that Theranos’s devices “can be operated with minimal training” and that its results have “precision and accuracy equivalent to traditional clinical laboratory analyzers.” Neither is true, Cheung says.

11 days ago

Erin Woo

Cheung said they were constantly having to recalibrate the machines, which made results take 2-3 days rather than the couple hours promised. “We had people sleeping in the car because it was taking too long,” she said.

11 days ago

Erin Woo

Cheung just said she “became concerned about a month in” with the vitamin D samples, in November of 2013. She was concerned about the performance of the tests and that they were being used on patient samples.

11 days ago

Erin Woo

Defense is done with cross-examination, after showing Cheung Theranos policy documents she said she’d never seen. The government is now asking questions again for redirect.

11 days ago

Erin Woo

Holmes’s lawyer is asking Cheung a lot of questions about quality control checks that occurred on the Theranos devices. “There is a recognition that some errors would happen and this was the policy on how to deal with those errors,” he said.

11 days ago

Erin Woo

Erika Cheung is now taking the stand as cross-examination continues.

11 days ago

Erin Woo

The update you’ve all been waiting for: The judge is STILL pronouncing it ther-AH-nos.

11 days ago

Erin Woo

In the courthouse now for another day of the Elizabeth Holmes trial. We’re expecting to wrap up testimony today from Erika Cheung, one of the key whistleblowers in the case.

12 days ago

Erin Griffith

That’s it for today.????????⚖️

12 days ago

Erin Griffith

So far the theme of the cross-exam of Cheung seems to be using excruciatingly arcane details about the processes and procedures of the Theranos lab to show that its work was very complicated, involving lots of smart, pedigreed people.

13 days ago

Erin Griffith

Cheung testified that in meetings about quality control failures, Theranos’s lab directors ignored the most obvious possible reason for the failures: “The Edison devices didn’t work.”

13 days ago

Erin Griffith

Trial gear alert: A reporter brought their own binoculars to see the exhibits on the TV screens.

13 days ago

Erin Griffith

Erika Cheung is back on the stand.

She described Theranos’s practice of demoing blood tests for V.I.P.s, where some of the results came from Theranos machines and others from Siemens analyzers.

13 days ago

Erin Griffith

At this point we have heard lawyers and witnesses pronounce “Theranos” hundreds of times, making me start to wonder whether judge is trying to mess with us by sticking to his “ther-AHHHHH-nos” pronunciation.

13 days ago

Erin Griffith

I should note the woman who clapped and yelled “you’re a good mom!” at Holmes yesterday suddenly stormed out of the courtroom after Judge Davila warned everyone that yelling stuff like that in front of any jurors could cause a mistrial. I don’t see her here today!

13 days ago

Erin Griffith

Elizabeth Holmes’s entourage is down to just her mom today.