Theranos CEO: $4.5bn to $0

In a reflection of the complete collapse in confidence of blood-testing company Theranos, its founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes has taken a bit of a hit in her estimated net worth.

Having topped the Forbes list of "Richest Self-Made Women" last year with $4.5bn, the publication has re-calculated her value this year to... $0.

The huge valuation was based on her 50 per cent share in Theranos, which she claimed had developed a revolutionary new technique for testing blood that required only a drop of blood.

However, an investigation revealed that the company's special machines did not in fact work, and it was using traditional testing machines for day-to-day testing.

Compounding that have been health regulators shutting down the company's California lab for "serious deficiencies" and threatening to ban Holmes from running a lab for two years, and investigations by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Attorney's Office over claims it misled investors and government officials.

Last month, it was revealed that the company had voided two years of results and issued tens of thousands of corrected reports to doctors across the United States.

Forbes now calculates that rather than being worth $9bn, the company is generously worth $800m, of which over $750m is investor money. So Holmes' value is virtually zero. And that's how you go from $4.5bn to $0 in just a year. ®