A privately held company (or simply a private company ) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in their respective listed markets. Instead, the company's stock is offered, owned, traded or exchanged privately, also known as " over-the-counter ". Related terms are unlisted organisation , unquoted company and private equity .
116-565: Theranos Inc. ( / ˈ θ ɛr . ə n . oʊ s / ) was an American privately held corporation that was touted as a breakthrough health technology company. Founded in 2003 by then 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes , Theranos raised more than US$ 700 million from venture capitalists and private investors, resulting in a $ 10 billion valuation at its peak in 2013 and 2014. The company claimed that it had devised blood tests that required very small amounts of blood and that could be performed rapidly and accurately, all using compact automated devices that
232-498: A $ 10 billion valuation at its peak in 2013 and 2014. In 2016, Forbes revised the estimated net worth of the company to $ 800 million taking into account the $ 724 million of capital raised. Between 2004 and 2016, the amount of available cash from investors for private equity / venture capital firms to invest in companies grew from $ 400 billion to $ 1.5 trillion. It was a period of plentiful capital available where investors were pressured to find investment targets to deploy capital on. In
348-596: A PhD in biopathology at the University of Athens (1996). He is a very highly cited medical researcher, with an h-index of 239 on Google Scholar in January 2023. From 1998 to 2010, Ioannidis was chairman of the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Ioannina School of Medicine. In 2002, he became an adjunct professor at Tufts University School of Medicine . He has also been president of
464-476: A Silicon Valley Startup . A film version was reportedly scheduled for release in 2020, starring Jennifer Lawrence as Elizabeth Holmes, written by Vanessa Taylor and directed by Adam McKay . In January 2022, McKay stated that preparations for the film had resumed, and that Lawrence was working on learning Holmes's speech pattern. However, in November 2022, Lawrence announced she would no longer be involved with
580-428: A bad study that supported a crazy right-wing conspiracy theory in the middle of a massive health crisis." Ioannidis has also promoted the idea that there were financial incentives to put COVID-19 on death certificates and as such, they were unreliable during the pandemic, as well as the idea that doctors killed COVID-19 patients through premature intubations. Both of these beliefs contradict the available evidence. It
696-495: A buyer were fruitless. Most of the company's remaining employees had been laid off on the previous Friday, August 31. However, Theranos general counsel and new CEO David Taylor and a few support staffers remained on payroll for a few more days. Any equity investments in the company were made worthless by the shutdown. Theranos would later transfer its patents to Fortress Investment Group on September 12 in exchange for Theranos's cash assets to be distributed to creditors. In March 2018,
812-848: A clinical laboratory for two years, suspension of approval to receive Medicare and Medicaid payments, and a civil monetary penalty. The company discontinued testing at its Newark location while attempting to resolve the issues. Theranos announced plans to appeal the decision by regulators to revoke its license to operate a lab in California and other sanctions. In May 2016, Theranos announced that it had voided two years of results from its Edison device. The company announced that about 1% of test results had been voided or corrected from its proprietary machines in June 2016. Within two weeks, Walgreens formally terminated its partnership with Theranos and would close all remaining Theranos wellness centers. In August 2016,
928-409: A combination of the words "therapy" and "diagnosis". The original name was "Real-Time Cures", which Holmes changed after deciding that people were skeptical of the word "cure". In 2012, Safeway invested $ 350 million into retrofitting 800 locations with clinics that would offer in-store blood tests. After many missed deadlines and questionable results from a trial clinic at Safeway's corporate offices,
1044-429: A feature on Ioannidis titled "The man who made scientists question themselves has just exposed huge flaws in evidence used to give drug prescriptions". In 2017, Wired mentioned Ioannidis as "arguably the replication crisis' chief inquisitor." In 2019, a STAT article on the healthcare replication crisis mentioned that Ioannidis had found that only a minority of widely cited health research studies carried out over
1160-724: A fringe minority by those in favor of the John Snow Memorandum . According to him, the latter used their large numbers of followers on Twitter and other social media and op-eds to shape a scientific groupthink against the former, who had less influence as measured by the Kardashian Index . The BMJ published responses to his paper, including a comment by Gavin Yamey , David Gorski , and Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz which argued that Ioannidis's paper featured "factual errors, statistical shortcomings, failure to protect
1276-604: A further 41% of its workforce, or approximately 155 people, and closed the last remaining blood-testing facility after the lab failed a second major U.S. regulatory inspection. Also that month, the company faced lawsuits from several different entities including Walgreens and Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich . In April 2017, lawyers for Partner Investments LP and two other funds, with combined stakes totaling more than $ 96 million in Theranos preferred shares, charged that Theranos had threatened to seek bankruptcy protection if
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#17327836104451392-545: A letter to Theranos based on a 2015 inspection of its Newark, California lab, reporting that the facility caused " immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety" due to a test to determine the correct dose of the blood-thinning drug warfarin . Walgreens subsequently announced a suspension of Theranos blood tests from the Newark lab and immediately paused wellness services in Palo Alto. Theranos also agreed to stop tests at
1508-497: A meeting at the White House where he and colleagues would caution President Donald Trump against "shutting down the country for [a] very long time and jeopardizing so many lives in doing this," according to a proposal he submitted. The meeting did not come to pass, but on March 28, after Trump said he wanted the country reopened by Easter, Ioannidis wrote to his colleagues, "I think our ideas have inflitrated [ sic ]
1624-507: A meta-epidemiological study which found that only 1 in 20 interventions tested in Cochrane Reviews have benefits that are supported by high-quality evidence., and a related study showing that the quality of this evidence does not seem to improve over time. Ioannidis has made methodological and conceptual contributions to the debates surrounding the use and misuse of statistical methods and inference . He has been an advocate of
1740-563: A paper examining the role of indoor and outdoor air quality in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 , which concluded that environmental health may be a crucial component in the prevention of COVID-19 and suggested preventive measures such as indoor CO 2 monitoring and mechanical ventilation . In 2022, Ioannidis authored a paper in BMJ Open arguing that signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration were shunned as
1856-536: A point of care system that could communicate with the Internet to receive instructions for which blood tests to run on the samples, before communicating these results back through the Internet. The results would then be compared to medical data available on the Internet, with the Edison running supplementary blood tests that were more targeted based on the results of the comparison. The patent was unclear on how much blood
1972-401: A public perception of a conflict of interest, but found "no evidence that any of the study funders influenced the design, execution, or reporting of the study". Amid controversy over his COVID-19 work and his frequent televised interviews, Ioannidis was harassed in memes and emails, including one falsely claiming his mother died of COVID-19. Some scientists and commentators voiced concerns over
2088-405: A refund to every resident who had received a test, regardless of whether the test results were voided or corrected. In August 2017, Theranos announced it had reached a settlement with Walgreens. In December 2017, Fortress Investment Group , a wholly owned company of Softbank Group , loaned $ 100 million to Theranos for 4% of the company. Theranos had reportedly been on the verge of bankruptcy, with
2204-560: A research agenda is needed to identify more effective interventions. Along with colleagues, Ioannidis has performed empirical evaluations and meta-research assessments of large numbers of scientific studies in neuroscience and have found that lack of power is a very common problem, leading to both false-negatives (the inability to discover true signals) and false-positives (finding spurious signals). In empirical assessments of all meta-analyses that have been conducted on economics topics, Ioannidis and colleagues have found that most of
2320-679: A series of five papers about research published in The Lancet and titled "Research: increasing value, reducing waste", Ioannidis co-authored papers discussing prioritization, transparency and the assessment of existing evidence when making decisions for the funding of research so that they meet the needs of users of research and examining how to correct weaknesses in research design , methods, and analysis by involving experienced statisticians and methodologists and avoiding stakeholders with conflicts of interest . Ioannidis's research at Stanford focuses on meta-analysis and meta-research –
2436-483: A settlement with the SEC which required her to pay $ 500,000, forfeit 19 million shares of company stock, and be barred from having a leadership position in any public company for ten years. Balwani did not settle with the SEC. On June 15, 2018, Holmes and Balwani were indicted on multiple counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. According to the indictment, investors, doctors and patients were defrauded. It
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#17327836104452552-621: A suit against Theranos in federal court in Delaware for breach of contract. In June 2017, Theranos reported to investors that the suit, which originally sought $ 140 million in damages, was settled for less than $ 30 million. In March 2015, the Cleveland Clinic announced a partnership with Theranos to test its technology and decrease the cost of lab tests. In July 2015, Theranos became the lab-work provider for Pennsylvania insurers AmeriHealth Caritas and Capital Blue Cross. The same month,
2668-484: A third paper (2016) he showed why clinical research in particular is usually not useful and how this can be amended. In the first of the three PLOS papers he stated that "a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there
2784-541: A threat to human well-being. Science denialism and quacks are also flourishing and leading more people astray in their life choices, including health. Evidence-based medicine still remains an unmet goal, worthy to be attained." He has described four inter-related problems that create what he calls the Medical Misinformation Mess: "First, much published medical research is not reliable or is of uncertain reliability, offers no benefit to patients, or
2900-405: A time, this practice aims to reduce selective reporting and publication bias. He has also advocated for the use of large national population databases with systematically collected data to minimize bias and improve yield of trustworthy discoveries. He has worked on the potential uses of such approaches in big data and artificial intelligence . Ioannidis has performed critical assessments of
3016-692: A valuation of $ 30 million. The company had about $ 45 million total fundraising after Series B and Series C funding in 2006. Theranos raised an additional $ 45 million in 2010 at a valuation of $ 1 billion. The company had significant news coverage starting in September 2013 after profiles in the San Francisco Business Times and The Wall Street Journal . By 2014, Theranos had raised more than $ 400 million with an estimated value of $ 9 billion. Theranos raised more than $ 700 million from venture capitalists and private investors, resulting in
3132-454: A wearable patch that could adjust the dosage of drug delivery and notify doctors of variables in patients' blood. She started developing lab-on-a-chip technology for blood tests , with the idea to start a company that would make blood tests cheaper, more convenient and accessible to consumers. Holmes dropped out of Stanford in 2003 and used the education trust from her parents to found the company that would later be called Theranos, derived from
3248-415: Is a Greek-American physician-scientist, writer and Stanford University professor who has made contributions to evidence-based medicine , epidemiology , and clinical research. Ioannidis studies scientific research itself - in other words, meta-research - primarily in clinical medicine and the social sciences. He has served on the editorial board of over twenty scientific journals including Journal of
3364-557: Is alleged that the defendants were aware of the unreliability and inaccuracy of their products, but concealed that information. The case, United States v. Elizabeth A. Holmes, et al. , was assigned to Lucy H. Koh , United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California . The jury selection for the trial was to begin on July 28, 2020, and the trial
3480-566: Is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance". In the second paper, he discussed solutions: "adoption of large-scale collaborative research; replication culture; registration; sharing; reproducibility practices; better statistical methods; standardization of definitions and analyses; more appropriate (usually more stringent) statistical thresholds; and improvement in study design standards, peer review, reporting and dissemination of research, and training of
3596-404: Is not useful to decision makers. Second, most healthcare professionals are not aware of this problem. Third, they also lack the skills necessary to evaluate the reliability and usefulness of medical evidence. Finally, patients and families frequently lack relevant, accurate medical evidence and skilled guidance at the time of medical decision-making." He has supported these views by contributing to
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3712-571: Is often found in former Eastern Bloc countries to differentiate from former state-owned enterprises , but it may be used anywhere in contrast to a state-owned or a collectively owned company. In the United States , a privately held company refers to a business entity owned by private stakeholders, investors, or company founders, and its shares are not available for public purchase on stock exchanges. That contrasts with public companies, whose shares are publicly traded, which allows investing by
3828-400: Is pleased to have resolved both lawsuits with PFM. Although we are confident that we would have prevailed at trial, resolution of these two cases allows our tender offer to go forward and enables us to return our focus where it belongs, which is on executing our business plans and delivering value for our shareholders." In April 2017, Theranos reached a settlement with CMS agreeing to stay out of
3944-591: Is referred to as privatization . A privately owned enterprise is one form that private property may take. In the United Kingdom, a close or closely held company is defined as a company which is controlled by either five or fewer shareholders or is controlled by shareholders who are also directors. John Ioannidis John P. A. Ioannidis ( / ˌ iː ə ˈ n iː d ɪ s / EE -ə- NEE -diss ; Greek : Ιωάννης Ιωαννίδης , pronounced [i.oˈanis i.oaˈniðis] ; born August 21, 1965)
4060-799: Is the lead author of the CONSORT for harms, a guideline that provides guidance on how to properly report on harms in randomized trials and has contributed to PRISMA for harms, a guideline for reporting of harms in meta-analyses. Ioannidis was one of the first to advocate the use of meta-analysis in genetic epidemiology to assess replication and the incorporation of meta-analysis in large-scale consortia of multiple investigators performing genome-wide association studies . He led and contributed to many such efforts in diverse areas of genetic epidemiology and in other areas of molecular epidemiology . Ioannidis has been critical of nutritional epidemiology research practices and has recommended reforms to improve
4176-522: Is the most downloaded paper in the Public Library of Science . In the paper, Ioannidis says that most published research does not meet good scientific standards of evidence. Ioannidis has also described the replication crisis in diverse scientific fields including genetics , clinical trials , neuroscience , and nutrition . His work has aimed to identify solutions to problems in research, and on how to perform research more optimally. In
4292-507: Is “widely-known as the godfather of science reform” and narrated how he was the first to criticize Theranos" and Graham Hilard at the Washington Examiner wrote that for the replication crisis in science, “the true clarion call was sounded in 2005 with the appearance of John P. A. Ioannidis’s Why Most Published Research Findings Are False,” describing the paper as a "shock treatise.” Ioannidis has received elected membership to
4408-728: The Corporations Act 2001 requires publicly traded companies to file certain documents relating to their annual general meeting with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). There is a similar requirement for large proprietary companies, which are required to lodge Form 388H to the ASIC containing their financial report. In the United States, private companies are held to different accounting auditing standards than public companies, overseen by
4524-1146: The European Journal of Clinical Investigation ( editor-in-chief , 2010–2019), BMC Medicine , International Journal of Epidemiology , Journal of the American Medical Association , Journal of Clinical Epidemiology , Journal of Infectious Diseases, International Journal of Molecular Epidemiology and Genetics , International Journal of Epidemiology , Journal of Translational Medicine , Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice , Clinical Chemistry, Physiological Reviews , Royal Society Open Science , Research Integrity and Peer Review , BioMed Central Infectious Diseases , Biomarker Research , Diagnostic and Prognostic Research , PLoS Medicine , PLoS Biology , The Lancet , Annals of Internal Medicine , JNCI , and Science Translational Medicine . In an editorial on STAT published March 17, 2020, Ioannidis wondered whether
4640-689: The American Association for Clinical Chemistry Susan A. Evans; William Foege , former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); David Helfet, director of the Orthopedic Trauma Service at the Hospital for Special Surgery; and professors Ann M. Gronowski, Larry J. Kricka, Jack Ladenson, Andy O. Miller and Steven Spitalnik. Balwani left his position as president and COO in May 2016. At that time,
4756-478: The Corporations Act 2001 limits a privately held company to 50 non-employee shareholders. A privately owned enterprise is a commercial enterprise owned by private investors, shareholders or owners (usually collectively , but they can be owned by a single individual ), and is in contrast to state institutions, such as publicly owned enterprises and government agencies . Private enterprises comprise
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4872-868: The Food and Drug Administration approved the use of the company's fingerstick blood testing device for the herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) outside a clinical laboratory setting. Theranos was named the 2015 Bioscience Company of the Year by the Arizona BioIndustry Association (AzBio). In February 2015, Stanford professor John Ioannidis wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association that no peer-reviewed research from Theranos had been published in medical research literature. In May 2015, University of Toronto Professor Eleftherios Diamandis analyzed Theranos technology and concluded that "most of
4988-662: The Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford , and George Johnson of the New York Times wrote an article on the importance of reproducible research , profiling Ioannidis's two 2005 papers as playing a critical role in raising concern about the issue in the scientific community, as later expressed by the journal Nature . In 2015, Ioannidis was profiled in The BMJ and described as "the scourge of sloppy science". In 2016, Quartz ran
5104-590: The Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences , University of Oxford and the BMJ. Ioannidis has developed and popularized several methods for meta-analysis and has made several conceptual advances in this field. These include methods for assessing heterogeneity and its uncertainty , methods for meta-analysis involving multiple treatments , methods and processes for umbrella reviews , and several approaches to identifying bias and adjusting
5220-588: The SEC for allegedly misleading investors and government officials about its technology. The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce requested information on what Theranos was doing to correct its testing inaccuracies and adherence to federal guidelines. In July 2016, Theranos announced that the CMS had revoked its Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certificate and issued sanctions prohibiting its owners and operators from owning or operating
5336-669: The Society for Research Synthesis Methodology . He holds four academic appointments at Stanford University : Professor of Medicine, Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, Professor (by courtesy) of Statistics and Professor (by courtesy) of Biomedical Data Science. He is director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, and co-director, along with Steven N. Goodman , of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford . Ioannidis's 2005 paper " Why Most Published Research Findings Are False "
5452-640: The Stanford Research Park building. It had laboratories in Newark, California , and Scottsdale, Arizona . In 2017, when Theranos was still denying its publicly reported fraud, the company vacated its Page Mill headquarters, moving remaining staff into the Newark, California, laboratories; Stanford University School of Medicine converted the Page Mill building to offices and medical laboratories. From its incorporation in 2003 until 2018, Holmes
5568-569: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), state attorneys general, former business partners, patients, and others. By June 2016, Forbes estimated that Holmes's personal net worth had dropped from $ 4.5 billion to "nothing". After several years of struggle, lawsuits, and sanctions from CMS, what remained of the company was dissolved in September 2018. Theranos, Holmes and former company president Sunny Balwani were charged with fraud by
5684-478: The US Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud charges against Theranos, its CEO Elizabeth Holmes and former president Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani , claiming they had engaged in an "elaborate, years-long fraud" wherein they "deceived investors into believing that its key product – a portable blood analyzer – could conduct comprehensive blood tests from finger drops of blood". Holmes reached
5800-460: The United States accounted for $ 1.8 trillion in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to Forbes . Separately, all non-government-owned companies are considered private enterprises . That meaning includes both publicly traded and privately held companies since their investors are individuals. Private ownership of productive assets differs from state ownership or collective ownership (as in worker-owned companies). This usage
5916-536: The Walton family ($ 150 million), Rupert Murdoch ($ 121 million), Betsy DeVos ($ 100 million), the Cox family (of Cox Media Group ) ($ 100 million) and Larry Ellison . The final liquidation of the company in September 2018 rendered these investments worthless. John Carreyrou, a Wall Street Journal journalist whose work exposed Theranos, published a book-length treatment in May 2018 titled Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in
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#17327836104456032-545: The concordance of results between meta-analyses and large trials and between randomized trials and non-randomized studies. Ioannidis has been one of the strong proponents and earlier advocates of evidence-based medicine . However, he has alerted that, over the years, as evidence-based medicine acquired more prominence and influence, it was hijacked to serve other agendas that are often biased. In an essay written to honor his late mentor David Sackett , he stated that "Influential randomized trials are largely done by and for
6148-599: The private company limited by shares in the United Kingdom (abbreviated Ltd ) or unlimited company and the proprietary limited company (abbreviated Pty Ltd ) or unlimited proprietary company (abbreviated Pty ) in South Africa and Australia . In India , private companies are registered by the Registrar of Companies , which is under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs . Indian private companies must contain
6264-408: The private sector of an economy. An economic system that 1) contains a large private sector where privately run businesses are the backbone of the economy, and 2) a business surplus is controlled by the owners, is referred to as capitalism . This contrasts with socialism , where the industry is owned by the state or by all of the community in common. The act of taking assets into the private sector
6380-556: The 2015 inspection, Theranos announced that it would voluntarily suspend its tests apart from the FDA-approved herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) test. The Arizona Department of Health Services reported issues with the company's Scottsdale lab meeting regulations in September 2015. The reports were revealed in the Arizona Republic in November 2015. In January 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent
6496-779: The American Medical Association ( JAMA ), Journal of the National Cancer Institute ( JNCI ) and The Lancet . Ioannidis's 2005 essay " Why Most Published Research Findings Are False " was the most-accessed article in the history of Public Library of Science (PLOS) as of 2020, with more than three million views. Ioannidis was a prominent opponent of lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic , and he has been accused of promoting conspiracy theories about COVID-19 policies and public health and safety measures. Born in New York City in 1965, Ioannidis
6612-594: The Capital Blue Cross retail store in Enola, Pennsylvania. In the four months that followed, Theranos faced further action from government agencies. CMS regulators announced plans to enact sanctions that included suspending Holmes and Balwani from owning or operating any certified clinical laboratory for two years and that they would revoke the facility's certification as a clinical laboratory. The company came under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors and
6728-600: The Cleveland Clinic to complete a validation study of its technology. In March 2016, a study authored by 13 scientists appeared in the Journal of Clinical Investigation , where it was stated that the company's blood test results were flagged "outside their normal range 1.6× more often than other testing services", that 68 percent of lab measurements evaluated "showed significant interservice variability", and that "lipid panel test results between Theranos and other clinical services" were "nonequivalent". In August 2016,
6844-515: The DIETFITS randomized trial that showed no difference between a low-fat and a low-carb diet. In an effort to improve the credibility of research on risk factors , Ioannidis has proposed that exposure-wide or environment-wide association studies should be performed and he has outlined the similarities and differences between such studies and genome-wide association studies in genetics. By assessing all risk factors together instead of one at
6960-467: The Edison would actually require to conduct these blood tests. In one section, the patent claimed the sample needed to consist of about 10 drops of blood, but in another section, it claimed the Edison would need less than one drop of blood. The technology was criticized for not being peer reviewed . Theranos claimed to have data verifying the accuracy and reliability of its tests that would be published. In February 2016, Theranos announced that it would permit
7076-415: The Edison." This was likely because of a well-known Edison quote: "I've not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." The blood sample was to be collected via a finger prick and then transferred to the nanotainer through Theranos's sample collection device. At just 12.9 millimetres (0.51 in) in height, the nanotainer held a couple of drops of blood. One of the patents for the Edison described
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#17327836104457192-545: The Great Barrington Declaration or any other petition or signature collection on COVID-19, as he is against the notion that scientific matters and evidence could be decided by signature collections and prefers these matters be handled by heavily moderated public debates. In 2010, David H. Freedman in The Atlantic stated in a special edition about "Brave Thinkers" that Ioannidis "may be one of
7308-551: The Manifesto for Reproducible Science, an eight-page document illuminating the need to fix the flaws in the current scientific process and mitigate the "reproducibility crisis" in science. In "Why Most Published Research Findings are False" (2005), Ioannidis focused on why most published research findings cannot be validated. In a later paper on PLOS Medicine (2014), he discusses what can be done to improve this situation and make more published research findings to be true and in
7424-686: The Private Company Counsel division of the Financial Accounting Standards Board . Researching private companies and private companies' financials in the United States can involve contacting the secretary of state for the U.S. state of incorporation (or for LLC or partnership, state of formation), or using specialized private company databases such as Dun & Bradstreet . Other companies, like Sageworks , provide aggregated data on privately held companies, segmented by industry code. By contrast, in
7540-566: The SEC in 2018. Holmes and Balwani were also charged with wire fraud and conspiracy, with Holmes being found guilty on four counts in January 2022 and sentenced that November to 11 years and 3 months in prison. Balwani was convicted on all 12 counts brought against him in July 2022, and in December 2022 was sentenced to 12 years and 11 months in prison and 3 years of probation. While at Stanford University , Elizabeth Holmes had an idea to develop
7656-652: The Theranos case, insufficient due diligence and fraudulent business practices led to the losses for investors. In May 2017, participating shareholders provided a release of any potential claims against Theranos in exchange for shares of the company's new preferred stock . Holders of more than 99% of the shares elected to participate. Holmes contributed shares to the company and gave up equity to offset potential dilution to non-participating shareholders. In May 2018, John Carreyrou reported that American business and government leaders lost more than $ 600 million by privately investing in Theranos. Major investments had been made by
7772-558: The U.S. Ioannidis expressed doubt that vaccines or treatments would be developed and tested in time to affect how the pandemic would unfold. Marc Lipsitch , Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health , objected to Ioannidis's characterization of the global response in a reply that was published on STAT the next day after Ioannidis's. In March 2020, Ioannidis tried to organize
7888-502: The United Kingdom, all incorporated companies are registered centrally with Companies House . Privately held companies also sometimes have restrictions on how many shareholders they may have. For example, the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934 , section 12(g), limits a privately held company, generally, to fewer than 2000 shareholders, and the U.S. Investment Company Act of 1940 , requires registration of investment companies that have more than 100 holders. In Australia, section 113 of
8004-605: The United States but not generally in the United Kingdom , the term is also extended to partnerships , sole proprietorships or business trusts . Each of those categories may have additional requirements and restrictions that may impact reporting requirements, income tax liabilities, governmental obligations, employee relations, marketing opportunities, and other business obligations and decisions. In many countries, there are forms of organization that are restricted to and are commonly used by private companies, for example,
8120-491: The White House regardless". Ioannidis widely promoted a study of which he had been co-author, "COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California", released as a preprint on April 17, 2020. It asserted that Santa Clara County 's number of infections was between 50 and 85 times higher than the official count, putting the virus's fatality rate as low as 0.1% to 0.2%. Ioannidis concluded from
8236-587: The approach to redefine statistical significance by requesting more stringent statistical significance thresholds ; he has proposed and empirically validated stringent thresholds for genome-wide significance in genetics ; and has been critical of the approach to entirely abandon statistical significance. Ioannidis has contributed to several influential guidelines for reporting different types of research, such as PRISMA for meta-analyses, TRIPOD for multivariable prognostic and diagnostic models , and others on clinical trials and observational research . He
8352-615: The backlash and the highly politicized scientific dispute in general. In March 2021 Ioannidis estimated the global infection fatality rate from COVID-19 at 0.15%, in an article in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation (EJCI). In an article in Science-Based Medicine , David Gorski said that the EJCI article included ad hominem criticisms against a co-author of a higher estimate who had criticized his work on Twitter. In February 2022 Ioannidis co-authored
8468-807: The benefit of the industry. Meta-analyses and guidelines have become a factory, mostly also serving vested interests. National and federal research funds are funneled almost exclusively to research with little relevance to health outcomes. We have supported the growth of principal investigators who excel primarily as managers absorbing more money. Diagnosis and prognosis research and efforts to individualize treatment have fueled recurrent spurious promises. Risk factor epidemiology has excelled in salami-sliced , data-dredged articles with gift authorship and has become adept to dictating policy from spurious evidence. Under market pressure, clinical medicine has been transformed to finance-based medicine. In many places, medicine and health care are wasting societal resources and becoming
8584-484: The blood-testing business for at least two years in exchange for reduced penalties, and signed a consent decree with Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich over violations of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act . Alleged violations included false advertisement and inaccurate blood testing. Theranos agreed to refund $ 4.65 million to the state's residents for Theranos blood testing services, providing
8700-526: The board and former CEO at Bechtel Group ). The board was criticized for consisting "mainly of directors with diplomatic or military backgrounds". In April 2016, Theranos announced its medical advisory board, which included past presidents or board members of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry . Members were invited to review the company's proprietary technologies and advise on the integration into clinical practice. The board included members with relevant biomedical expertise such as past president of
8816-471: The company announced its new board members, Fabrizio Bonanni (former executive vice president of Amgen ), Richard Kovacevich and William Foege, who would help to publicly introduce its technologies. In May 2016, members of the Theranos board of directors were: It was announced in November 2016 that the celebrity-studded "board of counselors" would be scrapped in January 2017. In December 2016, Theranos announced that its management team would be restructured with
8932-450: The company had developed. These claims were proven to be false. A turning point came in 2015, when medical research professor John Ioannidis , and later professor of clinical biochemistry Eleftherios Diamandis , along with investigative journalist John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal , questioned the validity of Theranos's technology. The company faced a string of legal and commercial challenges from medical authorities, investors,
9048-418: The company introduced a new robotic capillary blood testing unit named "miniLab" at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry , but did not present any data supporting the claimed abilities of the device. The miniLab was allegedly capable of carrying out a range of tests from a small amount of blood. After Theranos failed to address concerns that it exaggerated the capabilities of
9164-588: The company to the New York State Department of Health for CLIA violations. Theranos claimed that the allegations were "factually and scientifically erroneous". Walgreens suspended plans to expand blood-testing centers in their stores following the report. At that time, the Cleveland Clinic announced that it would work to verify Theranos technology. Theranos fought back against the Journal 's investigation, sending lawyers after sources in
9280-482: The company withdrew its request for emergency clearance of a Zika virus blood test after a lack of essential safeguards during the testing process was found by federal inspectors. Theranos announced that it would close its laboratory operations and wellness centers and lay off about 40% of its workforce to work on miniature medical testing machines in October 2016. In January 2017, Theranos announced that it had laid off
9396-467: The company's claims are exaggerated". Attempting to boost the company's credibility, Holmes invited then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to tour their facility. Biden praised what he saw, but to conceal the lab's true operating conditions, Holmes and Balwani had created a fake lab for the Vice President's tour. In October 2015, John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal reported that Theranos
9512-400: The credibility of research in the field. By means of empirical reviews, he has highlighted that there are studies suggesting that almost every nutrient is associated with cancer risk, which is an implausible situation He has also suggested that more attention is needed for proper disclosures of both financial and non-financial conflicts of interest in nutrition research. He also co-authored
9628-425: The deal was terminated in 2015. In 2013, Theranos partnered with Walgreens to offer in-store blood tests at more than 40 locations. Although Theranos blood tests were reportedly used on drug trial patients for GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer , both companies stated in October 2015 that there were no active projects with Theranos. In June 2016, Walgreens terminated its partnership with Theranos. In November 2016, it filed
9744-467: The departure of Riley Bechtel. In January 2017, incoming U.S. Secretary of Defense nominee James Mattis resigned from the Theranos board. In December 2016, the Theranos board of directors included: Theranos raised millions of dollars in its first years. In 2004, Theranos was based in a rented basement near the Stanford campus. By December 2004, the company had raised more than $ 6 million from investors at
9860-524: The evidence behind mental health interventions ( pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy ). He co-authored a network meta-analysis on more than 500 randomized trials of anti-depressants showing a modest benefit from these medications for major depression . He has identified the potential for sponsorship bias in meta-analyses in mental health and has empirically assessed the totality of meta-analyses on mental health interventions, estimating that beneficial effects do exist, but they tend to be modest and thus
9976-558: The general public. In countries with public trading markets, a privately held business is generally taken to mean one whose ownership shares or interests are not publicly traded. Often, privately held companies are owned by the company founders or their families and heirs or by a small group of investors. Sometimes, employees also hold shares in private companies. Most small businesses are privately held. Subsidiaries and joint ventures of publicly traded companies (for example, General Motors ' Saturn Corporation ), unless shares in
10092-476: The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic may be a "once-in-a-century evidence fiasco" and asked for obtaining more reliable data to deal with the pandemic. He made a rough estimation that the coronavirus could cause 10,000 U.S. deaths if it infected 1% of the U.S. population, but argued that more data was needed to determine how widely the virus would spread. The virus in fact eventually became widely disseminated , and would cause more than one million deaths in
10208-548: The history of internal testing, including accuracy and failure rates of Theranos's blood-testing systems. On January 3, 2022, Holmes was found guilty of four counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was sentenced in November 2022 to 11 years and 3 months in prison. On May 30, 2023, Holmes began serving her sentence at Federal Prison Camp, Bryan in Bryan, Texas . Balwani's trial began in March 2022 and he
10324-489: The immediate erosion of customer and stakeholder confidence in the event of financial duress. Further, with limited reporting requirements and shareholder expectations, private firms are afforded a greater operational flexibility by being able to focus on long-term growth rather than quarterly earnings. In addition, private company executives may steer their ships without shareholder approval, which allows them to take significant action without delays. In Australia, Part 2E of
10440-577: The investors did not agree to accept additional stock equity in lieu of litigation. Theranos officials said the funds had mischaracterized the exchange offer, which was discussed before the suit was filed. The suit also alleged that Theranos had misled company directors about its practices concerning laboratory testing and that it had secretly bought lab equipment to run fake demonstrations. On May 1, 2017, Theranos announced that it had reached an undisclosed settlement with Partner Fund Management LP (PFM). Theranos's General Counsel , David Taylor, stated: "Theranos
10556-628: The last decade could be replicated, with at least 1 in 6 actually being contradicted by later studies, and Elsevier featured his analogy of reproducibility in research to "taming a complex beast". In 2021, David Gorski 's article "What the heck happened to John Ioannidis?" described statements by Ioannidis about COVID-19 as inflammatory and politically charged, and said Ioannidis had made egregious ad hominem attacks. Gorski called Ioannidis "a cautionary tale of how even science watchdogs can fall prey to hubris." In 2022, Jeffrey Lee Funk and Gary N. Smith writing at MarketWatch described how Ioannidis
10672-409: The loan meant to keep the company solvent into 2018. The loan was secured by Theranos's patents. On April 10, 2018, the company laid off the majority of workers in a renewed bid to avoid bankruptcy. The company's total headcount was now fewer than 25 employees, after having 800 employees at its peak. Softbank's Fortress bought up Theranos patents and later, taking advantage of the new market conditions in
10788-534: The midst of the COVID-19 pandemic , set up a shell company called Labrador Diagnostics, which sued one of the companies making COVID-19 tests, saying that its test violated those Theranos patents. Theranos was still being issued patents into 2019 because of the lengthy patent application process. On September 4, 2018, Theranos announced in an email to investors that it would cease operations and release its assets and remaining cash to creditors after all efforts to find
10904-423: The miniLab, Walgreens withdrew from their partnership. It was later revealed that Theranos had voided two years of test results showing inaccuracies with the Edison technology. The company moved from 3200 Hillview Ave to the former headquarters of Facebook at 1601 S. California Ave in June 2012. By 2017 Theranos was headquartered at 1701 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, California, paying a $ 1 million per month lease for
11020-612: The most influential scientists alive." In 2011, Sharon Begley's article "Why Almost Everything You Hear About Medicine Is Wrong" in Newsweek said Ioannidis was "cementing his role as one of medicine's top mythbusters". In 2013, Richard Smith's article "Time for science to be about truth rather than careers" likened listening to Ioannidis to "listening to a great opera or watching a gripping football match: you feel inspired, uplifted, and privileged." In 2014, The Economist featured Ioannidis and Steven Goodman in an article on
11136-548: The named research subjects from harm, and potentially undeclared conflicts of interest that entirely undermine the analysis presented." In the same exchange of comments on The BMJ , Ioannidis addressed the concerns of Yamey, Gorski and Meyerovitz-Katz in his "Fourth set of replies", additionally stating that his "COVID-19 papers have been cited about 5 thousand times in the scientific literature by tens of thousands of scientists and were discussed by millions of people," and dismissed conflict of interest by asserting that he did not sign
11252-460: The presence of reproducible and transparent research indicators such as data sharing , code sharing , protocol registration, declaration of funding and conflicts of interest in biomedical sciences , social sciences , and psychology . He has led or co-led efforts to define and improve reproducibility in science, e.g. computational reproducibility, and to reduce research waste in study design, conduct, and analysis. Ioannidis has co-authored
11368-715: The project. In January 2019, ABC News Nightline released a podcast and documentary about the Holmes/Theranos story called The Dropout . A miniseries with the same name , based on the eponymous podcast, premiered on Hulu in the US, Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ internationally in March 2022, with Amanda Seyfried as Holmes. Also in January 2019, a documentary film entitled The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley about Holmes and Theranos
11484-532: The results of meta-analyses for bias, such as publication bias and reporting bias resulting in funnel-plot asymmetry. He has also alerted about the misuse and misinterpretation of bias tests. Along with David Chavalarias , he catalogued 235 biases across the entire publication record of biomedical research. Ioannidis has been critical of flawed, misleading and redundant meta-analyses, estimating that few meta-analyses in medicine are both bias-free and clinically useful. He has performed empirical evaluations of
11600-496: The scientific workforce". In the third paper, he proposed eight features that are important for useful clinical research: problem base, context placement, information gain, pragmatism, patient-centeredness, value for money, feasibility, and transparency. Ioannidis was invited to present his findings as a keynote speaker at the "Evidence Live 2016" conference , hosted jointly by the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) at
11716-476: The story, including Shultz, in an effort to stop them from providing information to the press. Former employees of reputation management firm Status Labs said that Theranos had hired the firm to discreetly erase mentions of the WSJ ' s reporting from its Misplaced Pages article (the activity being a violation of the website's terms of use ). Following the WSJ story, the history of FDA interactions with Theranos
11832-408: The studies in these fields are small and under-powered . Using bias detection and correction methods, they have concluded that nearly 80% of the reported effects in the empirical economics literature is exaggerated; typically by a factor of two, and with one-third inflated by a factor of four or more. Ioannidis has served on the editorial board of a number of scientific journals , including
11948-690: The study of studies. Thomas Trikalinos and Ioannidis coined the term Proteus phenomenon to describe tendency for early studies on a subject to find larger effect than later ones. He was an early and influential public critic of Theranos , the now-fallen Silicon Valley blood test startup that at its height was valued at up to $ 9 billion. He criticized it for "stealth research" that it had not made available for other scientists to review. Ioannidis has defined meta-research to include "thematic areas of methods, reporting, reproducibility, evaluation, and incentives (how to do, report, verify, correct, and reward science)". He has performed large-scale assessments of
12064-556: The study that the coronavirus is "not the apocalyptic problem we thought". The message found favor with right-wing media outlets, but the paper drew criticism from a number of epidemiologists who said its testing was inaccurate and its methods were sloppy. Writing for Wired , David H. Freedman said that the Santa Clara study compromised Ioannidis's previously excellent reputation and meant that future generations of scientists may remember him as "the fringe scientist who pumped up
12180-637: The subsidiary itself are traded directly, have characteristics of both privately held companies and publicly traded companies. Such companies are usually subject to the same reporting requirements as privately held companies, but their assets, liabilities, and activities are also including the reports of their parent companies , as are required by the accountancy and securities industry rules relating to groups of companies. Private companies may be called corporations , limited companies , limited liability companies , unlimited companies , or other names, depending on where and how they are organized and structured. In
12296-579: The word Private Limited at the end of their names. Privately held companies generally have fewer or less comprehensive reporting requirements and obligations for transparency , via annual reports, etc. than publicly traded companies do. For example, in the United States, privately held companies are not generally required to publish their financial statements . By not being required to disclose details about their operations and financial outlook, private companies are not forced to disclose information that may potentially be valuable to competitors and so can avoid
12412-501: Was convicted of 12 counts of fraud in July 2022. In December he was sentenced to 12 years and 11 months in prison and 3 years of probation. Theranos claimed to have developed devices to automate and miniaturize blood tests using microscopic blood volumes. Theranos dubbed its blood collection vessel the "nanotainer" and its analysis machine the "Edison". Holmes reportedly named the device "Edison" after inventor Thomas Edison , stating, "We tried everything else and it failed, so let's call it
12528-448: Was eventually revealed that the FDA had classified Theranos's device, called a nanotainer, as a Class II medical device , meaning that Theranos would need to use special labels, meet certain performance standards and perform post-market surveillance of the device. Theranos asserted that the nanotainer was a Class I medical device and therefore not subject to any regulatory requirements. After
12644-650: Was introduced to former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz , who joined the Theranos board of directors that month. Over the next three years, Shultz helped to introduce almost all the outside directors on the "all-star board", which included William Perry (former U.S. Secretary of Defense ), Henry Kissinger (former U.S. Secretary of State ), Sam Nunn (former U.S. Senator ), Bill Frist (former U.S. Senator, senate majority leader and heart-transplant surgeon), Gary Roughead (Admiral, USN , retired), Jim Mattis (General, USMC ), Richard Kovacevich (former Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO) and Riley P. Bechtel (chairman of
12760-602: Was later reported that the study received $ 5,000 in funding from the founder of the JetBlue airline, which led to criticism over a potential conflict of interest. In a guest opinion article in Scientific American , former colleagues of Ioannidis wrote that a legal firm had determined he had no financial conflict. A review by the Stanford School of Medicine faulted the study for shortcomings including
12876-664: Was raised in Athens , Greece. He was valedictorian of his class at Athens College , graduating in 1984, and won a number of awards, including the National Award of the Greek Mathematical Society . He graduated in the top rank of his class at the University of Athens Medical School (1990), then attended Harvard University for his medical residency in internal medicine . He did a fellowship at Tufts University for infectious disease and received
12992-477: Was released. Directed by Alex Gibney , it made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival and was released to the general public in March 2019 on HBO platforms. Privately held company Private companies are often less well-known than their publicly traded counterparts but still have major importance in the world's economy . For example, in 2008, the 441 largest private companies in
13108-580: Was scrutinized. The FDA had received a formal inquiry to look at Theranos blood test devices by the U.S. Department of Defense in 2012, when the devices were not yet commercially available and therefore did not require FDA approval. FDA inspection reports from 2014 and 2015 stated that its containers for blood collection were "not validated under actual or simulated use conditions" and "were not reviewed and not approved by designated individual(s) prior to issuance". In 2015, an FDA inspection resulted in multiple observed violations of FDA Title 21 Regulations . It
13224-407: Was the company's chief executive officer. She recruited Channing Robertson , a chemical-engineering professor at Stanford, to be a technical advisor and the company's first board member during its early years. Holmes's then-boyfriend Ramesh Balwani , a software engineer whom Holmes had met during high school, joined the company as its president and chief operating officer in 2009. In July 2011, Holmes
13340-452: Was to have commenced in August 2020; however, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a proposed October date, before the trial for Holmes was rescheduled to begin on August 31, 2021, with Balwani's trial pushed back further to 2022. In February 2021, federal prosecutors accused Holmes and other executives of destroying evidence in Theranos's final days in business. The specific evidence in question is
13456-509: Was using traditional blood testing machines instead of the company's Edison devices to run its tests, and that the company's Edison machines might provide inaccurate results. Tyler Shultz, a Theranos employee from 2013 to 2014 and the grandson of then-Theranos director, former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz , was a key source for the WSJ story. Shultz had attempted to take his concerns to company management. When that failed, he had spoken to Carreyrou and also, under an alias, reported
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