Theranos’ biggest clients, Walgreens and Safeway, are on the stand this week, testifying to what exactly they say they were told before signing multimillion-dollar deals with the blood testing startup. In email exchanges, text messages and board presentations, the prosecution paints a picture of deception while the defense claims the industry giants should’ve known better. Plus, we hear from Sunny Balwani’s dermatologist of 15 years, who happened to also become Theranos’ lab director. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Previously on the dropout.
There was drama from the jury pool when two women asked to be excused.
One was ultimately dismissed, her buddhist values and concerns around punishment preventing her from serving.
We're only a few weeks into the trial and we've now lost our second juror.
Everyone's going to be very mindful of the fact that jurors are starting to leave.
And a veteran Silicon Valley investor put the Theranos saga into larger context.
The notion that you could raise hundreds.
Of millions of dollars for a medical.
Testing company run by a person under the age of 30 was something that.
Would have been vanishingly unlikely prior to.
2000, but didn't seem out of place in the environment of the first decade of this century.
This week we hear from former Theranos COO Sunny Balwani's dermatologist, who also happened to join Theranos as its lab director, and two retail giants whose deals with Theranos help propel the company from a startup dream to a big league business.
From ABC Audio, this is the dropout Elizabeth Holmes on trial episode nine the clients in 2010, Elizabeth Holmes was plodding along, gathering investments and working to make Theranos supposedly revolutionary technology a reality.
But when two major us companies signed on to put Theranos devices in their stores, things got very real very quickly.
Walgreens and Safeway leaders in the drugstore and grocery businesses both fell hard and lost big.
Hundreds of millions of dollars big.
This week, we heard from senior executives at the companies, both very taken with a young Elizabeth and her ambitious vision.
First up, the longtime leader of Safeway, the supermarket chain with 276 locations in California alone.
I'm delighted today to have with us Stephen A.
Byrdenhouse, who is CEO, president and chairman of Safeway Corporation.