Holmes is an American health technology entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Theranos, a health technology and medical laboratory services company.
Her Wikipedia page says Holmes was born on February 3, 1984 in Washington D.C. Her father Christian Holmes IV worked in the United States, Africa and China as part of government agencies such as USAID. Her mother, Noel Anne (Daoust), worked as a Congressional committee staffer. She has a brother, Christian Holmes, who is the director of product management at Theranos.
Holmes proposed establishing a company to Professor Robertson in the fall of 2003, while she was a 19-year old sophomore at Stanford University. She used the money that her parents had saved for her education, to establish Real-Time Cures in Palo Alto. Later, she changed the company's name to Theranos (an amalgam of "therapy" and "diagnosis"), because she believed that many people had a cynical reaction to the word "cure".
Initially, she worked out of a basement of a group college house. A semester later, she dropped out to pursue her business career full-time. Professor Robertson served as a director of the company.
In 2007, it took three former employees to court, accusing them of misappropriating trade secrets.
By 2014, the company offered 200 tests and was licensed to run in every state of the US. It had 500 employees and was valued at more than $9 billion. Holmes retained control of more than 50% of the company's equity.
As of 2014, Holmes has 18 US patents and 66 non-US patents in her name and is listed as a co-inventor on over a hundred patent applications.
 |
| Holmes (left) is often a panelist in major forums where she discusses the achievements of her organisation. |