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Table of Contents
Erin Griffith
Cline: Now this is a question you may not want to answer. Some of the questions you asked Ms. Holmes about their technology came from Theranos’s competitors? Parloff: I did research and I heard various criticisms and I asked her to address those questions and criticisms.
Erin Griffith
OK, we go down the list and Parloff confirms he spoke with numerous Theranos board members, the C.E.O. of Walgreens and the top people at Dignity Health, UCSF, Blue Cross Blue Shield, a medical doctor, and Holmes’s parents.
Erin Griffith
Cline is running down a list of names that Parloff provided to the government that he spoke with for the article. Parloff is not eager to confirm those names and invokes reporter privilege. We go on a break so he can consult with his lawyer.
Erin Griffith
Parloff testifies that he read the entire transcript of Theranos’s patent trial (again… more than most of Theranos’s investors!) Cline asks whether there were researchers at Fortune who helped Parloff and he invokes reporter privilege.
Erin Griffith
Cline plays three clips from interviews. One where Holmes talks about the hub and spoke model and says the blood is transported to nearby central labs. Another where she describes their “Phase 2” model but that’s off the record.
Erin Griffith
Cline has Parloff describe what “off the record” means. He says there are different contexts — sometimes you can never use it. Other times it’s embargoed and maybe you can use it down the line.
Erin Griffith
Oooh a kerfuffle! Cline is asking about a Parloff meeting with Boies and Parloff says he wants to invoke reporter privilege. Parloff’s lawyer pops up from the audience to say something and Judge Davila tells him to have a seat.
Erin Griffith
That’s the end of direct. John Cline, Holmes’s lawyer, is doing the cross. He starts by asking about Parloff’s background again, lingering on his Ivy education and multiple decades of experience as a reporter. Then moves on to how he came to the Theranos story.
Erin Griffith
At the end of Parloff’s testimony, Bostic asks about the WSJ story about Theranos. Parloff says he called Holmes immediately to ask her about how many tests Theranos could do on its own machines. Bostic: Did she tell you Theranos could never do more than a dozen tests? “No.”
Erin Griffith
In a recording of an interview with Parloff, he says, “I thought all of your tests were sort of… lab-developed tests” Holmes responds by saying they’re offering traditional lab tests in order to make sure their offerings are comprehensive and cheap for customers.
Erin Griffith
The next year, Holmes told him that in 2015 they had just started using third-party devices for esoteric and seldom ordered tests.
Erin Griffith
Holmes praised the article “effusively” after it was published and she linked to it from the Theranos website, Parloff testifies.
Erin Griffith
Parloff asked Holmes multiple times if Theranos was using third party devices for anything. She said no, and he wrote that in his article. “Those were direct questions and direct answers,” he said.
Erin Griffith
Back from break, another recording where Holmes says “The fact that we have a single device that can perform any test” is a sensitive trade secret.
Erin Griffith
The short lunch breaks means the two-block radius around the courthouse is crawling with journalists stuffing whatever food they can grab into their maw while speed-walking. 😰
Erin Griffith
At this point Parloff has done more diligence than half the Theranos investors.