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Blood testing fraudster Elizabeth Holmes' husband unveils his VERY ironic new business

Blood testing fraudster Elizabeth Holmes' husband unveils his VERY ironic new business

Daily Mail​11-05-2025
While his wife Elizabeth Holmes is in jail for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Billy Evans is ironically starting his own.
Evans is launching a business which also aims to revolutionize diagnostic testing using bodily fluids, according to marketing materials seen by the New York Times.
The entrepreneur is in the fundraising stage of creating a start-up called Haemanthus, which is the Greek name of a flower also known as a blood lily.
Evans wasn't planning on announcing his nascent venture yet, but two investors who he pitched to spoke anonymously about the plans with the New York Times.
His company - which comes 22 years after Holmes launched her own phony business named Theranos - is aiming to raise $50 million to create a medical testing product which would hope to catalyze 'human health optimization.'
Evans, who shares two children with Holmes, has reportedly raised a few million for the project so far, but it's unclear what the timeline for the company launch is.
He told the Times that 'when you're in stealth, you're trying to be in stealth. (You) aren't going to find anything associated with the name Haemanthus'.
The Times shared a photograph allegedly showing the medical device Haemanthus is creating, which looks very similar to Holmes' Edison testing machine.
Evans, who shares two children with Holmes, has reportedly raised a few million for the project so far, but it's unclear what the timeline for the company launch is
Theranos founder Holmes, 41, has served two out of her 11-year sentence at Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, after she was convicted on fraud charges in January 2022.
She founded what seemed to be a revolutionary blood-testing company called Theranos after dropping out of Stanford University at the age of 19.
The company's valuation skyrocketed to $9 billion after it claimed to have developed methods which required just a droplet of blood from a finger-prick.
Forbes named Holmes the youngest female self-made billionaire in the US in 2015.
But her Silicon Valley success came crashing down the following year when a series of explosive articles in The Wall Street Journal laid bare her lies to investors.
Holmes managed to gain investment in her company by lying about the accuracy and reliability of her blood-testing equipment, a jury found in January 2022.
As it currently stands, Holmes is due to be released early on December 29, 2032 - just over 9.5 years after she began her prison sentence.
She met husband Evans, who is nine years her junior, at a party in 2017 just as Theranos was collapsing.
According to the New York Post, Billy told a former colleague: 'You won't believe who I met! She's not as the articles portray her to be.'
The pair's relationship progressed quickly, despite Holmes' legal troubles. They adopted a husky together, and were spotted at Burning Man in 2018, and he stood by her side throughout her court hearings.
Last February, Holmes was spotted celebrating her 40th birthday behind bars.
At the time, she was seen playing in the prison yard with her other half Billy and their children at FPC Bryan in Texas.
Dressed in her prison-issued khakis, Holmes couldn't contain her joy and smiled as she held her son and was visited by her parents and friends.
The multi-million dollar pharmaceutical scammer has allegedly been doing workout classes and spending time with her fellow high-profile inmate, Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah.
She has also been taking maternal advice from Shah, with sources previously claiming that they have been helping each other 'get through' their incarcerations.
Comedian Nathan Fielder has also been spotted visiting Holmes in the high-security prison, according to Jeff Sneider of The Insneider.
Fielder hasn't shared any details about his trips to the federal jail, but Sneider's report suggests the comedian may be working on a documentary or some kind of experimental video project.
Holmes' life has also been dramatized through BBC1 series The Dropout, which launched last year.
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