By Natalie Grover and Ankur Banerjee
(Reuters) - A U.S. health
regulator has barred blood-testing company Theranos Inc's founder and
CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, from operating a lab for at least two years, the
latest blow for a company that is under scrutiny for the accuracy and
quality of its tests.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services (CMS)revoked a key certificate for the company's Newark,
California lab, and terminated the facility's approval to receive
Medicare and Medicaid payments for all services, Theranos said late on
Thursday.
Theranos,
once valued at $9 billion, is also being investigated by other federal
and state agencies and was accused in a suit filed in May of endangering
customer health through "massive failures" that misrepresented test
results, according to court papers.
"While we are disappointed
by CMS' decision, we take these matters very seriously and are committed
to fully resolving all outstanding issues," Holmes said in a statement.
Holmes, once a Silicon Valley darling, has seen her net worth
dwindle to zero from $4.5 billion last year, according to Forbes
magazine.
Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 and it promised
ground-breaking methods that would allow quick results for a wide range
of tests with just one drop of blood.
The company has been under
pressure since the Wall Street Journal published a series of reports
that had raised doubts about Theranos's devices.
The CMS said in
January that Theranos's practices violated several clinical-laboratory
regulations, jeopardizing patient health and safety.
