Theranos is a company which supposedly was capable of state-of-the-art blood tests. Theranos began 15 years ago by a Stanford University dropout, Elizabeth Holmes (at the age of 19), who became indicted recently for falsified claims. Theranos had approximately 24 employees.

Theranos raised more than $700 million (U.S.) dollars from VCs and private investors. Theranos’ peak valuation was an astounding $10 billion (U.S.) dollars back in 2013. At one point, Ms. Holmes’ worth was at an estimated $4.5 billion dollars. It is now nothing and she faces a potential 20 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines. Theranos claimed it needed but a mere 0.01-0.001 the amount of blood required for traditional tests and could do so at a fraction of the cost.

She has risked the care of patients which is not trivial. She stated the company had an annual revenue 1000 times greater than it actually was. 5 days ago, both Sunny Balwani and Elizabeth Holmes were charged with fraud – more specifically, on wire fraud and conspiracy.

Should Ms. Holmes and Balwani be punished to a greater degree given the company is founded upon medical care? What can and should the scientific community learn from this?