Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes jailed for fraud

Elizabeth Holmes, a disgraced former Silicon Valley tech CEO, has been sentenced to over 11 years for fraud.

Her company Theranos was once valued at $9bn (£7.5bn). She falsely claimed the firm's technology could diagnose disease with just a few drops of blood.

She was found guilty in January of duping investors and lying about the technology after a three-month trial.

Holmes is expected to appeal the sentence, which was handed down on Friday in a California court.

The sentencing of the 38-year-old has been widely viewed as a test of how seriously the justice system takes corporate fraud in the tech sector.

Once hailed as the "next Steve Jobs", Holmes was at one time said to be the world's youngest self-made billionaire.

She launched Theranos after dropping out of Stanford University at age 19, and its value rose sharply after the company claimed it could bring about a revolution in the diagnosing of disease.

But the technology Holmes touted did not work at all and - awash in lawsuits - the company was dissolved by 2018.

At Holmes' trial in San Jose, California, prosecutors said she knowingly misled doctors and patients about the Theranos flagship product - the Edison machine - which the company claimed could detect cancer, diabetes and other conditions using just a few drops of blood.

They also accused Holmes of vastly exaggerating the firm's performance to its financial backers.

Jurors ultimately found her guilty on four counts of fraud, with a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. But they found her not guilty on four other charges, and failed to reach a verdict on three more.

Before Judge Edward Davila issued his sentence on Friday, Holmes read a speech to the court in which she tearfully apologised to investors and patients.

"I am devastated by my failings. I have felt deep pain for what people went through, because I failed them," she said.

"I regret my failings with every cell of my body," she continued.

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