In a press release titled "Company Re-engineers Operations," Theranos announced it has re-engineered 155 workers right out the door.
The layoff leaves the reeling blood-testing company, once heralded as a major innovator on the basis of its claimed ability to conduct dozens of tests from just a few drops of blood, with just 220 employees. That's down from about 850 last October, when Theranos let go of about 340 people in conjunction with shuttering its disastrous consumer blood-testing business.
That business, which once included dozens of blood-draw locations in Walgreen's stores, collapsed in the wake of a series of events not exactly conducive to business. Among the company's misfortunes were a Wall Street Journal investigation alleging a bevy of improprieties and inaccuracies related to the company’s secret technology; unprecedented government sanctions due to uncovered deficiencies at its main lab; and a multiplicity of lawsuits.
Theranos has said for months now that its main focus is on its miniLab, a printer-sized device that integrates already available technologies into one machine.
But some scientists who attended the unveiling of the device at a scientific conference last August were less than impressed.