Theranos boots COO

Troubled blood-testing company Theranos has booted out its president and chief operating officer and added new board members in an effort to rebuild confidence.

Sunny Balwani is "retiring" according to a blog post by the company, just a month after it was revealed federal regulators were considering banning Balwani and CEO Elizabeth Holmes from running a testing facility for two years over repeated compliance failures at their California lab.

That censure is just the latest in a string of embarrassing reports. Theranos has also admitted it is being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Attorney's Office over claims it misled investors and government officials.

Most of those problems stem from an investigative report by the Wall Street Journal that revealed the company's claimed revolutionary blood-testing technology did not produce reliable results and the company was using traditional testing machines for the vast majority of its work.

Notable by her absence in Thursday's announcement is CEO Elizabeth Holmes. Much of Theranos' high-profile and one-time $9bn valuation is thanks to Holmes promoting the company and its technology which she claims is able to diagnose a wide range of medical issues using just a pinprick of blood.

The fact that she still hold the CEO post is almost certainly down to the fact that she also has a controlling 50 per cent stake in the company. By ditching Balwani and bringing in new directors, Holmes hopes to keep her company from imploding.

The three new Board members are: former senior exec at biotech giant Amgen, Dr Fabrizio Bonanni; a former director at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. William Foege; former Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich. ®