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This week, the main witnesses Elizabeth Holmes’ fraud case, the founder of the blood testing startup Theranos, were former lab executives who testified about some of the inner workings of the failed company. But a different issue gradually emerged in the proceedings: how long will Ms. Holmes’ trial take?

Here are the key takeaways from this week’s events.

annoyed by delays

First there was a fear of Covid. Then a juror had to travel for the funeral. Then a corrupted su-master statement canceled it. And on Tuesday, the court’s tech system crashed, delaying cases for several hours and forcing lawyers to show exhibits on a projector.

Edward Davila, Judge of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, who oversaw the case, apologized and said he was “very embarrassed” by the technical issues. The witness stand was equipped with a lamp.

Delays, cancellations and other unexpected interruptions have added to the feeling of heightened time pressure for a case originally scheduled to begin in mid-2020 but later delayed multiple times due to procedural issues, the pandemic and most recently Ms. .

When jury selection began in August, it had been six years since The Wall Street Journal announced that the claims about Theranos’ technology were not what they seemed. Many witnesses said during their deposition that their memories of events, some of them more than a decade ago, were not very clear.

It took 10 weeks for 23 witnesses to go through a list of nearly 200 people the prosecution could call. In contrast, Kyle Rittenhouse’s Kenosha, Wis. 26 witnesses in 6 days.

Many of the bold names on the prosecution’s list, such as Henry Kissinger, Rupert Murdoch or David Boies, have yet to be called. According to Judge Davila’s general schedule, the trial will close on December 10.

On Wednesday, the prosecution provided some timing clarity. Prosecutors said they would likely withdraw their case against Ms. Holmes next week. Then his defense will kick in.

A lab manager who never visits the lab

Lynette Sawyer, a public health doctor who was co-director of Theranos’ lab in 2014 and 2015, witnessed the lab’s night-flying nature.

Dr. Sawyer said he never stepped inside the instance. He said he didn’t know he was developing his own tests and hadn’t heard of Edison and the miniLab, the Theranos’ testing machines or the nanotainer, the blood collection cartridges. He said he had not received any reports on his laboratory activities and had not met Mrs. Holmes.

Dr. According to Sawyer’s testimony, his job was to sign documents he couldn’t edit. He said he left because he was “very uncomfortable with the lack of clarity about the lab.”

Dr. Sawyer, Dr. He worked with Sunil Dhawan. testified before He said he spent a total of five to 10 hours working for Theranos. Dr. Dhawan was a dermatologist with no experience in laboratory science.

sudden danger

In 2016, Theranos’ lab director, Dr. Kingshuk Das took a look at the conclusions from critical media reports about the company and how Ms. Holmes has reacted.

Shortly after the Journal disclosed Theranos in the fall of 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the regulatory agency that oversees lab testing, conducted a review of the start-up’s lab. The agency then sent the company a notice titled “Status Level Gaps —”. Immediate DangerIn its report, the agency revealed that Theranos’ lab was not in compliance with regulations and said it’s possible that every single patient test the company did on one of its machines was wrong.

Dr. When Das told Ms. Holmes about the problems, she said she offered an alternative explanation from one of Theranos’ employees, Daniel Edlin: The Theranos machines had not malfunctioned; there was just a problem with the quality control processes.

Dr. Das disagreed and concluded that Theranos needed to invalidate as many as 60,000 tests, sending patients a report that simply said “Void”.

Ms. Holmes’ lawyer, Lance Wade, said in cross-examination that she had agreed to void the tests despite “moderate media scrutiny” and “potentially serious consequences for the company”. With one-word answers to most of Mr. Wade’s questions, Dr. Das said he didn’t know Miss Holmes’ intentions. Unlike previous lab managers, Dr. Das reported directly to Mrs. Holmes.

Ultimately, Dr. Das said Theranos’ testing machines, which promised to perform comprehensive blood testing on a drop of blood, were faulty from the very beginning.

“I found these instruments unsuitable for clinical use,” he said.