Embattled Silicon Valley medical technology company Theranos is reportedly returning to its startup roots, at least by one metric: It will only have a couple dozen employees left following a new round of layoffs, according to the Wall Street Journal.
On Tuesday, CEO Elizabeth Holmes announced during an internal meeting that she would slash around 100 remaining jobs, the Journal said, in a bid to stave off bankruptcy. The former high-flying Silicon Valley company, which will reportedly have less than 25 workers left after the move, had about 800 employees just two and a half years ago before being accused of lying about the effectiveness of its blood testing machines.
Coins2Day has contacted Theranos to confirm the Journal‘s reporting and will update this post if it responds.
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Theranos had claimed to have developed revolutionary technology that could diagnose disease with tiny pinpricks of blood, but those claims were later shown to be largely overblown. Those revelations were followed by a crackdown by regulators that included requiring the company to throw out the results of tens of thousands of patient blood tests.
In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged founder and CEO Holmes (along with former president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani) with massive fraud. Holmes settled with the SEC, agreeing to give up millions of her private Theranos shares, pay a $500,000 penalty, and avoid serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years. Theranos neither admitted nor denied any wrongdoing in that settlement. There is still an ongoing federal criminal investigation into Theranos.