Ramesh Balwani Biography | Ramesh Balwani

Ramesh Balwani(full name: Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani) is the former president and chief operating officer of Theranos, which was a privately held health technology company founded by his then-girlfriend Elizabeth Holmes. Theranos is known for its false claims to have devised revolutionary blood tests that used very small amounts of blood.

Starting in 2015–2016, Theranos came under criticism in the media due to its questionable claims and practices. In June 2018, Balwani was under indictment by the United States Department of Justice for fraud and conspiracy.

The charges in the criminal indictment stem from allegations that Balwani engaged in a multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud investors, and a separate scheme to defraud doctors and patients

Ramesh Balwani Age

Ramesh Balwani. Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani is the former president and chief operating officer of Theranos, which was a privately held health technology company founded by his then-girlfriend Elizabeth Holmes.  Ramesh is 54 years old. He was born in 1965, in Pakistan

Ramesh Balwani Career

He worked for Lotus Software and Microsoft prior to the founding of CommerceBid. In 1999, right before the dot-com bubble burst, CommerceBid was sold to Commerce One for $4.5 million in cash and 785,000 shares of Commerce One stock.

In September 2009, despite having no experience in the field of biotechnology, Balwani joined Theranos, run by his then-girlfriend Elizabeth Holmes. Together, they raised $700 million of investor money.

On March 14, 2018, Balwani and Holmes were charged with “massive fraud” by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

On June 15, 2018, federal prosecutors criminally charged Balwani and Holmes, alleging that they defrauded investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars and also defrauded doctors and patients.

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Ramesh Balwani Early life and Education

Ramesh was born in Pakistan to a Hindu family. Because of the difficulties of being a Hindu in Pakistan, the family subsequently moved to India. The family then immigrated to the United States, and in 1986 he began undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin where he was a member of the Pakistani Students Association, as pictured in the 1988 Cactus Yearbook.

He received an undergraduate degree in information systems. In 1998, he helped create CommerceBid.com, a software development company that helped businesses buy and sell items over the burgeoning Internet. In 1999, the company was purchased by Commerce One, another business development software company with a high valuation stock – the buyout was done entirely with stock.

He joined the board of the new company. In July 2000, Balwani cashed out his shares in Commerce One, pocketing nearly $40 million shortly before the company went out of business, just before the dot com bubble burst.

Subsequently, he went back to school and received a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley in 2003. He spent another four years in a computer science graduate program at Stanford University but dropped out in 2008.

While enrolled at Berkeley, Balwani met Elizabeth Holmes, who was in her senior year of high school. Balwani and Holmes were 37 and 18 respectively when they met. The two were on a summer trip to Beijing, as a part of Stanford’s Summer Mandarin Course cohort. Holmes then went on to Stanford University to pursue an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering, but later dropped out to focus full-time on Theranos.

Ramesh Balwani Personal Life, Married, Wife

Ramesh Balwani was married to his wife Keiko Fujimoto, a Japanese artist. There is no information regarding when the duo tied the knot but they separated in 2002. Also, the pair never revealed the actual reason for their separation.

Ramesh also has a history of dating Elizabeth Holmes. The two met in 2003 while Holmes was still in school and 18 years old whereas Balwani was a year senior to her as well as married to Keiko Fujimoto. In 2004, Balwani divorced his wife and moved into an apartment in 2005.

Balwani and Holmes were in a relationship until his tenure at Theranos. Later, they revealed that they are no longer together.

Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes indicated on wire fraud charges, take a short look

Currently, Balwani seems to be living a single life along with his family and parents. Furthermore, he doesn’t seem to be dating any girl at the moment. Moreover, he is focusing on his career and future settlement.

Ramesh Balwani’s Net Worth

As of 2018, Balwani’s net worth is under review. But after Commerce One brought CommerceBid, he cashed out his shares in Commerce One, collecting around $40 million. Furthermore, he and his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Holmes raised $700 million of investor money through Theranos.

According to the Dresher, Rames enjoys an impressive net worth of around $85 Million as of 2018. Besides, Ramesh has not released any information about his cars, properties, or any other income source. He lives a rich lifestyle along with his family in a beautiful house resides in Mumbai, India.

Ramesh Balwani Atherton

Day to day operations of Theranos was run by Balwani as company president. He joined the company in 2009, a few years after Holmes founded Theranos. He had no training in the biological sciences or medical devices, which became an issue due to the company’s failure to have medical experts on the board of directors and Balwani’s reported behavior.

He was described by former Theranos employees as overbearing, uncompromising, demanding and so secretive and worried about industrial espionage that he verged on paranoia.

Balwani at one point claimed: “This invention [the Edison blood testing device] is going to be way up there, um, with– with the discovery of antibiotics.” Within Theranos, he was known for using technical terms he seemingly did not understand in what others believed were attempts to appear more knowledgeable.

He once misheard “end effector” (the claw or other devices at the end of an automated robot’s arm) as “endofunctor” (a nonsense word) and repeated the error throughout a meeting, furthermore not noticing when “Endofactor” was subsequently used as a prank in a PowerPoint presentation.

The Wall Street Journal reported in October 2015 that the Edison blood testing device by Theranos produces inaccurate medical diagnoses and results.

Edison machines frequently failed quality-control checks and produced widely varying results and this was corroborated in inspection results released in March 2016 by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In April 2016, Theranos told regulators it had voided all test results from Edison machines for 2014 and 2015, as well as some other tests it ran on conventional machines.

In January 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a warning letter to Theranos after inspecting its Newark, California, laboratory. CMS regulators proposed a two-year ban on Balwani from owning or operating a blood lab after the company had not fixed problems within its California lab in March 2016.

The other charges of fraud against Theranos include claiming the company’s technology was being used by the U.S. Department of Defense in combat situations despite never having been used. He also was present when Holmes told Safeway’s then-CEO that Theranos’ analyzers were being deployed on the battlefield.

Another false claim included claiming a $100 million revenue stream in 2014 that was actually $100,000.

Ramesh Balwani SEC fraud charges

In March 2018, the SEC brought securities fraud charges against Balwani and Holmes for engaging in an “elaborate, years-long fraud”.They were charged with “raising more than $700 million from investors through an elaborate, years-long fraud in which they exaggerated or made false statements about the company’s technology, business, and financial performance,” said the SEC.

Holmes settled the case out of court without admitting or denying wrongdoing, but Balwani is still in litigation as of 2019. He says he is innocent of the charges. Read also Sheryl Sandberg

 Ramesh Balwani Criminal charges

On June 15, 2018, following an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco that lasted more than two years, a federal grand jury indicted president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani and Elizabeth Holmes on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Prosecutors allege that Holmes and Balwani engaged in two criminal schemes, one to defraud investors, the other to defraud doctors and patients. The case is proceeding in the U.S. District Court in San Jose. Balwani and Holmes pleaded not guilty. Balwani’s defense is that he never made any money while at Theranos.

Ramesh Balwani Reddit | SEC lawsuit

The SEC has filed four claims against Sunny Balwani for violations of the U.S. Securities Act. The penalties that can be imposed on Balwani include having Balwani pay civil penalties and prohibiting Balwani from serving as an officer or director of any entity having a class of securities under the SEC.

The SEC alleges that Sunny Balwani was “concentrated on developing software for Theranos’ technology and managing personnel and operations…and collaborated closely with [Holmes] and made decisions about the company together.” The SEC also alleged that Balwani repeatedly deceived and misled pharmacies, grocery stores, and investors.

By the time of Theranos’ financing round in 2014, FDA representatives told Balwani and Holmes that clearance or approval would be necessary for Theranos’ analyzer and tests. In late 2013 and throughout 2014, FDA representatives met with Balwani and Holmes and stated that FDA clearance or approval was necessary.

Based on these communications, Balwani and Holmes agreed to submit all components of Theranos’ testing technology to the FDA for clearance or approval. However, Balwani and Holmes continued to raise additional funds while telling potential investors Theranos was seeking FDA approval voluntarily.

The SEC alleges that: Balwani’s statements that Theranos did not need FDA approval or clearance were important to investors because approval or clearance would have been an obstacle in the company’s path to realizing full commercialization.”

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Ramesh Balwani News

Elizabeth Holmes & Sunny Balwani’s Confusing Relationship, Explained

Adopted:https://www.refinery29.com
Published: March 18, 2019

The mystery and scandal surrounding the story of Theranos and its CEO Elizabeth Holmes is a fascinating one made all the more engrossing thanks to her secret relationship with the president of the company which was only revealed after the fact.

Back in June 2018, the government charged Holmes and former boyfriend Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani with several crimes, meaning these now-former lovebirds are arguably going through one of the worst breakups, ever.

Both pleaded guilty. But Holmes and Balwani hadn’t commented on their relationship publicly until deposition tapes were reported on by Nightline in January 2019, even though John Carreyrou confirmed as much in his exhaustive book on the subject, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. So how did it all begin and what do we know about the super-secretive duo? Let’s break it all down for you.