Table of Biography
Ramesh Balwani is an American Entrepreneur. Ramesh Balwani was the former president of Theranos Biotechnology Company, which was a privately held health Technology Company. He has also become a former chief operating officer (COO) at Theranos.
Early Life and Education
Ramesh Balwani is 58 years old. He was born on 13 June 1965 in Pakistan to a Hindu family. However, his exact date of birth is confusing as Wikipedia mentioned his date of birth as March-June 1965.
Later on, his family moved to India because being Hindu in Pakistan was difficult to survive. Then his family moved to the United States.
Talking about his personal life, there is no detailed information about his parents and family members. He belongs to the Indian-American nationality and ethnicity of Asians.
Ramesh Balwani began his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin in 1986 where he was a member of the Pakistani Students Association. He received an undergraduate degree in Information systems and Artificial intelligence.
In 2003, he again went back to school to pursue a master’s degree in Business Administration at California, Berkeley.
While he was at Berkeley, he met Elizabeth Holmes. She was in her senior year of High school.
Furthermore, he spent another 4 years in a computer science graduate program at Stanford University though he dropped out in 2009.
Ramesh Balwani – Net Worth 2024
As of 2018, he used to work for Theranos. His net worth is under review as of 2023. He used to enjoy an impressive net worth of $85 million.
Presently, the company, Theranos has vanished. His Net worth has decreased to $0 at the present.
Relationship Status
Ramesh Balwani married Keiko Fujimoto, a Japanese artist, and they ended up divorcing in 2004. There is no detailed information regarding their marriage. Though, they separated.
Furthermore, Balwani has a history of dating Elizabeth Holmes. They two met in Berkeley in 2003 while Holmes was just 18 years 18-year-old Senior High school student.
Moreover, their one knew of their romantic relationship until Holmes revealed it during her 2017 deposition. Due to different professional and personal problems, they ended their relationship.
Though Elizabeth engaged to her fiance, William Billy Evans. He worked as a manager of special projects for Luminar Technology in 2019.
Caption: Ramesh Balwani’s wife (Source: Dresher)
Professional Life and Career
Reflecting upon his career, Balwani had worked for Lotus software and Microsoft before founding Commercebid.
In 2009, Balwani joined Theranos a few years after Holmes founded it. He had never received any training in biological sciences and medical devices, and this soon began to cause problems.
As he was focusing full-time on Theranos, he dropped his chemical engineering degree.
Similarly, his behavior toward Theranos’ employees was also problematic. According to the workers, he was overbearing, uncompromising, and demanding.
As well was also extremely anxious about corporate espionage and tried to maintain paranoid-level secrecy in company matters.
Moreover, Theranos claimed to have developed devices that would automate and miniaturize blood tests by making use of microscopic blood volumes.
The workers named the device’s blood collection vessel the “container” and its analysis machine the “Edison”.
He had even gone as far as comparing the device to the discovery of antibiotics. Likewise, Balwani used to talk beyond his knowledge which was quite noticeable to the workers.
According to the report of October 2015, Theranos’ Edison blood-testing device gives incorrect medical diagnoses and results.
Because of this, the device could not pass several quality-control checks and gave severely inconsistent results.
Likewise, the company was compelled to invalidate all the test results from the machines for 2014 and 2015 in April 2016.
They even had to invalidate the results of several other tests, despite running them on conventional machines.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) gave the company a warning through a letter in January 2016 after performing an inspection of Theranos’ Newark laboratory.
The CMS had suggested that a two-year ban should be imposed on Balwani from owning or operating a blood lab as the company could not rectify the issues in their California lab.
Legal Issues
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed charges of massive fraud against Balwani, Theranos, and Holmes on March 14, 2018.
Through this, he faced four claims for violations of the US Security Act.
The SEC made the allegation against him was, he “concentrated on developing software for Theranos’ technology and managing personnel and operations…and collaborated closely with [Holmes] and made decisions about the company together.”
They even accused Balwani of deceiving and misleading pharmacies, grocery stores, and investors.
Similarly, the charges against Theranos also involved the company’s dealings with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The (SEC) said that Balwani made false statements about Theranos not needing FDA approval or clearance.
After a two-year investigation conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco, he and Holmes were charged with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud by a federal grand jury on June 15, 2018.
Scandal
Reflecting upon Ramesh Balwani’s controversies, he has been through many controversies while working at Theranos.
He was not trained in any biological sciences or medical devices. But he still worked as president of Theranos, which was a blood-testing company. And also due to his behavior, he has been through controversies.
At present, Theranos’ founder Elizabeth Holmes, and former COO Ramesh Balwani are charged and trailed for massive fraud by the Securities & Exchange Commission.
However, Balwani claims that he is not guilty as charged and he shall fight in court for the wrong charges, as told by his attorney in March 2019.
If he faces the punishment as charged, he needs to face jail time of up to 20 years.
Caption: Ramesh was charged with massive fraud involving Theranos. Source: Bloomberg
Ramesh Balwani – Body Measurements
According to online resources, Balwani stands at a height of 5 feet 7 inches and weighs 68 kg.
Furthermore, his both eye color and hair color are black. Besides this, there is no information regarding her other measures.