He appeared during his trial as the evil genius of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the start-up Theranos, who was his companion. Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, former director of operations of the company that promised to revolutionize blood tests, was sentenced to almost thirteen years in prison on Wednesday December 7. An even heavier sentence than that received by his former partner Elizabeth Holmes, sentenced in mid-November to eleven years in prison. A judgment she appealed.
Tried in a separate trial, Mr. Balwani was found guilty in July on all cases of fraud against the company’s investors and patients. The former number two of the start-up was sentenced to 155 months in prison on Wednesday, according to a decision rendered by a US federal judge.
Founded in 2003, Theranos promised to invent a machine capable of performing hundreds of blood diagnoses from a single drop of blood taken from the finger.
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Thanks to this revolutionary project, the start-up had aroused the enthusiasm of many businessmen and senior figures, including the former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the former Minister of Defense James Mattis or the magnate media Rupert Murdoch.
A case revealed by the “Wall Street Journal”
But she had collapsed when the Wall Street Journal revealed in 2015 that the technology never worked as expected.
The ex-girlfriend of Mr. Balwani had established himself as a star of Silicon Valley, thanks to a story and a very worked appearance, which had enabled him to gain the confidence of investors.
At the controls of Theranos, the two lovers, who were initially sued together but were ultimately tried separately, had raised hundreds of millions of dollars in funds. At its peak, their start-up was valued at nearly $10 billion.