Attorney: "Do you think at the time there was a connection between him leaving the company and him and your sister stopping living together? Well, I can't fiddle with the punctuation.". During her deposition, Holmes said, "We couldn't make the relationship successful beyond that.". Were not in a position in which we need to raise equity capital, she said. TV Shows. It seemed Stanford professor Channing Robertson, one of Holmes' earliest cheerleaders, was also still supporting her despite the building controversy. The lack of blinking alone with that thousand yard stare would unhinge me in a conversation with her . In his report, Bilton noted Holmes ditched the black turtlenecks for "athleisure," and has a "chipper" outlookeven looking to start another company and gauging interest in a book deal or documentary to tell her side of the story. Don't you think that Walgreens would have wanted to know what device you were using to process these samples? "He asked me 'What do you think?'" Like Holmes, he is expected to appear in a San Francisco court on April 22 for a status hearing, and a trial date has yet to be set. As for Robertson, he served as a witness during Holmes trial in 2021. Channing Robertson flaunted a net worth of above $10 million in 2022. "I think I got caught up in this woman's story. ", Holmes replied, "We did not tell them that the FDA had come to inspect because we thought we were to try to successfully resolve the engagement with FDA before communicating about it.". (Mr. Holmes has since returned to public service and now works at the United States Agency for International Development.). After Dr. Gardner kept rejecting then-freshman Holmes' idea, telling her it was impossible, she moved on to Channing Robertson, Stanford'sprofessor of chemical engineering and the dean of the engineering school, who quickly became her mentor. It is very much to me about a mission, she said, not a job.. While Holmes and her counsel did not respond to our repeated requests for an interview, Balwani's attorney, Coopersmith, agreed to join ABC News' Rebecca Jarvis for his first in-depth conversation. Robertson did not respond to requests for comment. In fact, it didn't come anywhere close to that: 41 stores. Holmes: "My understanding, generally, is if anyone was reviewing the data had a concern about the data, don't include it on the report.". In 2013, Carreyrou wrote, "she forced through a resolution that assigned one hundred votes to every . The Rise and Fall of Elizabeth Holmes - Man's World India His grandfather even attempted to dissuade him from speaking out with the threat of legal action at one point, but the young Shultz still spoke out, acting as one of the main sources in Carreyrou's WSJ article. Brian Grossman had 20 years of experience in the healthcare space but his firm, PFM Health Sciences, invested $96 million in Theranos anyway. That in turn provoked the record $206 billion Master National Settlement between the states and the tobacco industry brokered later that year - the largest legal settlement in U.S. history. Coopersmith said Theranos needed to use other machines because of the amount of samples coming from Walgreens. Because he joined the Elizabeth Holmes cult. "I think what she didn't expect was that I would actually ask a lot of questions and that if things weren't going as they should be going that I would ask tough questions," Tevanian said in The Dropout. It had never even occurred to me, Mr. Robertson said, adding that he considers being Ms. Holmess mentor akin to teaching Beethoven to play piano or teaching science to Einstein. ' The Dropout ' follows Elizabeth Holmes ( Amanda Seyfried) as she drops out of Stanford and launches Theranos, a biotech startup. GlaxoSmithKline also said it had not conducted any work with Theranos in the last two years and that none of it had involved its clinical trials. Lies behind Silicon Valley marvel - dailytelegraph His legendary Introduction to Chemical Engineering course (E20) has been viewed on iTunes and YouTube by over 100,000 people. No POC would ever have gotten anywhere close to what she almost got away with. After Theranos' demise, Robertson still works at Stanford as "professor Emeritus, Vice Provost and Dean of Research.". 'The Dropout Cast Compared to Real Life People - Men's Health SEC attorney: "Did you reach out to Mr. There is another ghost no one is talking about, his name is Channing Robertson, Stanford Professor who dubbed E Holmes as the new Einstein Robert says: Comment by Robert on March 20, 2018 at 10:56 pm Craig said the only way Holmes wouldn't remember . The true story of The Dropout's shamed Theranos mogul Elizabeth Holmes The family moved in powerful circles. ", Expert testimony fundamentally appeals to him, says Robertson, "because it's terribly interesting, and you meet and work with fascinating people.". It ended the friendship. Walgreens, as well as the reputation of the company. He obtained his Ph.D. under Andreas Acrivos and began working as a professor at Stanford in 1970. In her quest, Holmes receives support from her professor, Channing Robertson. SEC attorney: "Was it ever deployed in a medevac helicopter?". Channing Robertson. Born in Pakistan, Balwani came to the U.S. in 1986 for college and became a millionaire as an executive at a software . Theranos reportedly sued Fuiz and his . Fame is a rare thing for a chemical engineer, but Channing Robertson's exalted reputation in the fields of medicine, law and engineering is about as close as it comes. ", "Students," he adds, "just love that kind of forensic mystery.". Since his active role in the Theranos scandal, he is no longer teaching classes in the School of Engineering. Walgreens didn't officially terminate its relationship with Theranos until about eight months later, but within two weeks after Carreyrou's first article was published in 2015, Walgreens halted the expansion of its Theranos Wellness Centers. And as for his salary as a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford, he received around $145 thousand per annum. Robertson was one of the stars of the Stanford faculty. Who Is Channing Robertson? Wiki, Biography, Age, Spouse, Net Worth A series of explosive articles by Wall Street Journal investigative reporter John Carreyrou had pushed questions about whether Theranos' technology really worked into mainstream media coverage. The committee's findings led to legislation pending in Congress to create a new federal agency to standardize forensic techniques and certify forensic labs across the nation. Post Thernos it's in Stanford's best interest to disassociate from Channing Robertson, and EH as much as possible. By high school, she was fluent in Mandarin and sold C++ compilers and had her sights on becoming a billionaire. You walk in the room, and the question is, What is your exit strategy? recalled Ms. Holmes of some of those visits to potential backers. They said venture capitalists were put off when Ms. Holmes wouldnt demonstrate Theranoss technology. Uncharged molecules go through biological membranes much faster. In 2012, Robertson became a member of the Theranos board. Ms. Holmes argues that the companys focus over time simply shifted away from the pharmaceutical industry, but it was able to successfully use its technology. "Over the years, we're going to force them to reduce the harm, to the point that, I suspect, they'll probably figure out something else to do for a business.". And there is the matter of the black turtlenecks. Parloff had worked with Boies on a number of other stories and said Holmes and her monumental mission convinced him this latest Boies' pitch was worth pursuing. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? She was looking for patient investors. During her deposition, Holmes kept repeating the same thing -- variations of "I don't know specifically" or "I'm not sure" -- more than 660 times. ", Holmes: "My understanding is David reached out to him. Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, attends a panel discussion during the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in New York in this Sept. 29, 2015 file photo. "I think Mr. Balwani did everything he could to make sure that that laboratory was running as well as it could run," Coopersmith told ABC News. And he says, 'Well, that's exactly what's happening.'". Holmes' brother, Christian Holmes, said the couple stopped living together when Balwani left Theranos, but Coopersmith said the reason Balwani left was "a burnout factor. He also convinced Ian Gibbons to work at Theranos. I have not seen it. The children played together. "His father tragically died at a pretty young age of a heart attack in India, and Mr. Balwani felt that the the healthcare was not what it should have been -- that if he had had the right test, if they had diagnosed the problem, his dad might still be alive today," he said. Just three months before Theranos started rolling out its technology at Walgreens in July 2013, Holmes was getting emails from employees saying their demo tests were returning a number of inaccuracies. 8. Another board member with a sterling reputation was Channing Robertson, the associate dean of Stanford's School of Engineering. 16 /r/theranos, 2021-09-26, 20:55:34 Permalink . From left to right, Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Sunny Balwani, her brother Christian and whistleblower Tyler Shultz are seen here during their depositions. Holmes' carefully crafted narrative began to unravel during her deposition with SEC attorneys. They knew. Ms. Holmes will not say exactly how the company is conducting tests at the moment, but she did acknowledge that Theranos must satisfy regulators. "I think there are people who are the Mozarts and the Beethovens and the Newtons, the Lavoisiers and the Einsteins and the da Vincis, who come along rarely in a generational sense," he said. Time released medications have been studied for 30+ years and I actually know many other inventors of different time releasing biomaterials. At a very young age, she persuaded powerful people to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in her mission. And he probably thought, the worst that can happen is her technology never works and they'll just go out of business. Former employee Erika Cheung worked in Theranos's CLIA lab processing patient samples and said that when she tried to tell Balwani quality controls were failing "at one point what seemed almost every day" he became enraged. Robertson was impressed with Elizabeth Holmes and her vision. Lawyer Reed Kathrein, who represented the investors who sued Holmes, alleged that Robertson was hired merely to provide credibility to Theranos. Robertson served as the Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. I gave her her first million bucks to get the business going, Mr. Draper says. Will Channing Robertson face any consequences for getting duped and supporting this fraud? After constantly questioning Holmes, Tevanian was eventually confronted by other board members and when he said he would only stay on if she was replaced by a more qualified person as Theranos' CEO, the board sided with their young boss. Channing Robertson - Software Developer - Intellicure, LLC - LinkedIn Vote. ", Holmes: "I am not aware that they were very focused on what hardware that we were using. Channing Robertson Bio, Now, Wife, Age, Theranos In 2007, Robertson was the lone engineer invited to join a new subcommittee set up to investigate the state of forensic evidence and testimony in the United States. Theranos said it was restructuring and that he was going to retire. Who Is Channing Robertson? Where is Theranos' Channing Robertson Now? Holmes and Balwani each were charged with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, to which they both pleaded not guilty. United States. Coopersmith said if he had to give Balwani a grade for the job he did at Theranos, he "would give him an A -plus for dedication and effort. CA License # A-588676-HAZ / DIR Contractor Registration #1000009744 Holmes responds to questions regarding claims she made about her now defunct biotech start-up's blood-testing device, which had attracted high-ranking former military and political investors. ", Robertson caps that with a phrase apposite for a man who's accomplished so much and yet remains excited for what's still to come: "Stay tuned. "I think that at the end of the day, everyone was concerned that we were not giving people the right results," Shultz said in his deposition. Their suit helped open the legal floodgates against A.H. Robins, and in short order the company racked up another $450 million in settlement and legal costs. "From Mr. Balwani's perspective, he had to rely on his scientists who were signing off on reports and doing quality control and proficiency testing to try to make sure there weren't mistakes," Coopersmith said. Seems like without him, the fraud might not have had the chance to flourish. Getty Images. What kind of questions would you ask? Mr. Lucas is a godfatherlike figure in Silicon Valley who built his reputation by investing in a little start-up called Oracle. His expert testimony about the addictive properties of cigarettes had forced the tobacco industry to enter into a landmark $6.5 billion settlement with the . She often spoke as though the companys technology already existed, they said, rather than as if it were still in development. Check out the hottest fashion, photos, movies and TV shows! Unlike Holmes, Balwani did not agree to the charges against him from the SEC, and the case is ongoing. It was what she and the company had pitched to Walgreens in 2010. Lawyer: J. Channing Bennett: Phone: 971-239-0543, 503-581-1501: Fax: 503-581-5891: Lawyer Title: Partner: . But Parloff told ABC News he interacted mostly with Holmes when putting together his story. Holmes stepped down as CEO of Theranos that day. "People didn't want to actually know the number of times that we were having issues because they were starting to realize we were having them so frequently," Cheung said. In this two-part oral history, Robertson dis. A Fall from a Great Height | Technical Boy ", SEC attorney: "Did Theranos ever disclose to Walgreens what devices it was use -- using to run different test types? Robertson remembers, "and I said, 'That's probably not a good idea. In the transcript, an attorney said to Shultz, "Dr. Young begins by saying: 'By the way, I would also like to know if you have actually seen the PT data that you have mentioned for vitamin D or someone just mentioned them in passing' And then can you read the second sentence of your response to him. Channing Robertson. According to Vanity Fair's Nick Bilton, Holmes is living in a San Francisco luxury apartment and is engaged to a hospitality heir currently working in the tech field. ", Balwani: "Well there was a lot of trade secrets here.". "It was just a 19-year-old talking who'd taken one course in microfluidics, and she thought she was gonna make something of it.". To me, Robertson has some culpability in Ian Gibbons' suicide. I still think he is the starting catalyst for all of this mess. Richard Kovacevich, chairman of Wells Fargo, joined Theranos's board in 2013. He did not defraud consumers, but instead worked tirelessly to empower them with access to their own health information. "Grateful to @VicThompsonABC's 20/20 #Theranos #TheDropout documentary team. Everything's, everything's, everything's just exactly right the way it is.". How did Stanford University Professor of chemical Engineering, Channing And then there is Theranos, the biomed startup founded in 2003 by Robertson's student Elizabeth Holmes when she was still an undergraduate and where he's now an active director. approval. He said that neither she nor Theranos ever indicated anything was incorrect. "Luckily, I look back and have very few regrets. "He oversaw the lab operations from a business perspective," Coppersmith said. In never-before-broadcasted depositions, attorneys for the Securities and Exchange Commission ask Holmes questions about whether she helped orchestrate an "elaborate, years-long fraud. Last year, as the deadly and highly contagious Ebola virus threatened to spread around the globe, Theranos, a Silicon Valley start-up, was scrambling to find a test that could quickly detect if a person was infected. His involvement helped convince other old white guys to join the cult (oops, I meant board and investors). "These people who become scientists and artists and musicians, I think, possess a very special capability. SEC attorney: "Besides sitting for an interview with Mr. Parloff and providing documents to him, did you do anything else to help Mr. Parloff understand the company and write his article? Channing Rex Robertson est un professeur amricain connu pour avoir sig au conseil d'administration de la socit de biotechnologie aujourd'hui disparue connue sous le nom de Theranos, fonde par l'tudiant de Robertson. So much of what she had been spreading for years about the capabilities of her startup's technology proved to be untrue, including things she had said in interviews like with Fortune's Roger Parloff, who wrote a cover story on Holmes in June 2014. The Real Reason Theranos Failed Spectacularly - History-Computer More than that, Elizabeth Holmes, who started the company in 2003, had a higher-minded purpose. While Theranos was performing venous and finger-stick blood testing at Walgreens, Holmes said under oath that a venous draw's test did not indicate the type of device that Theranos was using. 16 Jun June 16, 2022. channing robertson reputation. There's Channing Robertson, the Stanford chemical engineering professor who joined the Theranos board when Holmes dropped out of college. Although he was already wealthy, $500k where he lives, even if over the years amounted to a few millions is not life changing. . American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, "The not-so-retiring retirement of Channing Robertson", "Will Disgraced CEO Elizabeth Holmes Woo Another Batch of Silicon Valley Investors? [1] He received his Ph.D. from Stanford under the supervision of Andreas Acrivos. How an unassuming professor of chemical engineering helped save lives, change forensic science and bring down Big Tobacco. He originally joined the faculty of Stanford in 1970, and formerly served as the Ruth G. and William K. Bowes Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Academic Affairs in the School of Engineering there. And the chief design architect is actually the one who told her where to get the exact same black turtlenecks he wore, "And the rest is couture history," Arriola said in The Dropout. They also put in some of their retirement money, she says. During a two-and-a-half-hour interview in the companys headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., Ms. Holmes, wearing her trademark black turtleneck and slacks and flanked by two recently hired media relations professionals, said the data Theranos had submitted to regulators was proof the technology worked. "The [Theranos] PR person I spoke to at that time said, you know, I reread your story. ", Craig said the partnership with Walgreens "was everything. Everything The Dropout Got Wrong About The True Story - Looper.com Parloff said he arranged to visit Theranos headquarters in Palo Alto, California, to interview Holmes and spent three days with her. Elizabeths father, Christian IV, grew up in California, raised by his mother, a former Powers model, whose second husband was a prominent San Francisco businessman. IUDs are attached to a string for removal, but the Dalkon Shield's string, Klein told Robertson, had been made not of a single strand, but of multiple fibers. It has struggled to forge business relationships with other potential partners, like Safeway. ", Shultz: "Yeah. Mr. Holmes took a Hearst daughter to a debutante cotillion in 1967. Channing Robertson, Theranos technical adviser . Stephan Gibbs. Ciresi was lead council for the State of Minnesota and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota in a suit against the major cigarette manufacturers. Balwani, who is 19 years Holmes' senior, has mostly remained out of the public eye, with his lawyer speaking on his behalf. ", When pressed about that instance, Coopersmith said, "Mr. Balwani was very passionate about Theranos and its technology, and he wanted it to succeed with all his heart.". I believe wholeheartedly he knew and understood based off her patents schematics it wasnt possible. Criminal charges from the Department of Justice followed a few months later -- June 15. Tyler Shultz, the grandson of George Shultz, one of Theranos' former board members, says CEO Elizabeth Holmes knew the company's devices couldn't perform all the blood tests she claimed they could. But that's not how Holmes presented the company's capability to Parloff. Did you agree with Sunny's assessment in November of 2014 that Walgreens was terrible? Theranos wanted its equipment to be used in the field with soldiers, according to one individual with direct knowledge of the meeting. WIRED Book Club: We're reading Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou ", 475 Via Ortega Ms. Holmes says that from an early age, she was obsessed with going to Stanford, a symbol of Silicon Valley and invention.. Channing Robertson - IMDb "She was dressed in a dark hoodie and jeans and didn't look to have any makeup on or anythingshe looked very young,"he said. At the time, about 40 had been opened in California and Arizona. Crucial details of this profitable link remained hidden from public view until John Carreyrou's book Bad Blood cam. ", "British head scientist at US maverick's Silicon Valley start-up took own life over 'unworkable' technology", "Theranos just made another major leadership change", "When Theranos' remarkable blood-test claims began to unravel", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Channing_Robertson&oldid=1088445484, This page was last edited on 18 May 2022, at 01:52. Looking back at it now, I absolutely wish we had handled our communications differently.". Channing Roberston: Distinguished Professor at Stanford; Larry Ellison: Chairman and CTO of Oracle Channing Rex Robertson, 79 - Stanford, CA - MyLife However, not much is known about his life after Theranos was dissolved. But when it came to fund-raising, Ms. Holmes had an ace up her sleeve: family connections. I have no doubt we would have gotten the green light for the tests, Mr. Kovacevich said. Despite Holmes' ability to charm older white businessman, assembling an impressive all-male board of directors at Theranos, there was one person who told her what she was trying to do was impossible from day one: Dr. Phyllis Gardner, the well-respected and revered professor of medicine at Stanford. Her trial concluded in January 2022, and she is currently awaiting sentencing. Almost a decade later, Robertson tangled with a much larger foe: Big Tobacco. But an investigation published in The Wall Street Journal in October changed the narrative by raising serious concerns about whether the companys technology actually works. SEC attorney: "Was Theranos' technology deployed in emergency rooms, hospitals and provider offices?". Bad Blood Excerpt: Read free excerpt of Bad Blood by John Carreyrou I mean, Walgreens was Theranos' most important business partner at the time. Institutions whose names were often linked with Theranos, like the Cleveland Clinic, insist they have not yet had a chance to use the technology. In a surprise turn, failed startup founder Elizabeth Holmes began testifying Friday to defend herself against the 11 counts of criminal fraud she faces in connection to the Theranos blood-testing . Craig said the only way Holmes wouldn't remember what she meant that day in her text exchange with Balwani would be if "she had serious head trauma. -. Irwin plays Channing Robertson in The Dropout, a Stanford professor who became one of Holmes' earliest champions and enablers, even serving on the Theranos board. But it didnt work. Perhaps, she joked, I should bring them with me and give them to people as gifts., Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/business/theranos-founder-faces-a-test-of-technology-and-reputation.html. It was also something concealed from some board members and employees. This is episode 5 of "The Dropout," a podcast about the fall of Theranos. Robertson served as the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Academic Affairs in Stanfords School of Engineering. I think he sat in an office and just collected a check terrible! Contact. It started out with Channing Robertson, the well-regarded Stanford engineering professor who would join her board, encouraging her and putting her in touch with people he knew around the Valley. Dans"The Dropout", l'acteur Bill Irwin essaie le rle de Channing Robertson. My conjecture is that he had to of known from his breadth of knowledge and all the other brilliant Stanford bodies he was surrounded by that such a contraption and overall ability to extract as much data from such a small amount of blood was not feasible.