Elizabeth Holmes testifies that Theranos had ‘successes’ with pharmaceutical com...

Holmes’s testimony ended for the day Monday after the former Theranos CEO answered questions for about two hours.

Holmes’s defense attorney asked her about studies Theranos conducted with pharmaceutical companies, including many designed to evaluate how well Theranos’s technology worked — pointing out the start-up’s positive relationships with the companies.

Theranos performed well in the studies and continued talking with many of the pharma companies after they ended, Holmes testified.

Theranos’s relationship with pharmaceutical companies is a key aspect of the prosecution’s case against Holmes. Prosecutors have alleged that Theranos misrepresented its relationship with pharma companies to investors and business partners.

Holmes testified that she didn’t speak directly with a Schering-Plough scientist about the results of a validation report that was designed for the pharmaceutical company to see how well Theranos’s technology worked.

The scientist, Constance Cullen, testified earlier in the trial that she found Holmes’s behavior during the report to be “cagey,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Prosecutors have alleged that Theranos improperly put Schering-Plough’s logo on a document that it showed to an investor to make it seem like the pharma company had validated Theranos’s technology.

Holmes said Monday that she received an email from one of her employees who had talked to Cullen, suggesting that Cullen was pleased with Theranos.

Prosecutors also previously called the former CEO of Safeway, Steven Burd, who testified about the grocery chain’s ultimately failed partnership with Theranos to put the blood-testing devices in stores.

“I was bothered by it. I was disappointed,” he said of repeated delays. Eventually, the partnership crumbled.

Investors testified about what they didn’t know when they gave the company money — especially that Theranos was relying on third-party lab machines to run most of its tests. Former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who served on the company’s board, testified that Theranos’s technology was never used by the military, a key point of the prosecutor’s case.

On Friday, the defense called a witness to briefly summarize Theranos’s patents and other records, as well as a former board member, before calling Holmes to the stand.

Holmes’s lawyer talked the defendant through several projects Theranos worked on with pharmaceutical companies, including Novartis, Merck and AstraZeneca.

Some of the projects included validation studies for the large pharma companies to assess how well Theranos’s technology performed against traditional methods. Many of the studies took place in 2008 and 2009.

Holmes testified several times that Theranos’s technology performed well when evaluated next to traditional methods.

“I remember it being really good,” she said of the results of one study that compared Theranos’s technology to standard practices.

The closely-watched Theranos trial was delayed more than an hour Monday as the judge met with lawyers in chambers.

Holmes is expected to resume testifying Monday in a case that has captivated Silicon Valley.

The spectacular collapse of Theranos in 2018 following media and regulatory investigations triggered some limited soul searching in Silicon Valley, according to interviews with more than a dozen investors, founders and lawyers.

But little cultural change has occurred in the start-up industry in the years since, they say. One former Theranos employee told the Washington Post he hopes that the case is a wake-up call for the industry.

Holmes confirmed in testimony Monday that Theranos never formalized a deal to work on any programs with the Defense Department.

The company attempted to partner with the department in 2008 and 2009 on several programs, including one that would have studied infection in trauma patients, she said.

Theranos’s military involvement is a key piece of the prosecutor’s case against Holmes, whom they allege misled investors into thinking the company was working with the military.

After a delay of more than 90 minutes, Holmes took the stand for the second day of her testimony Monday in federal court here, where she faces 11 charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

A mix of journalists, spectators and Holmes’s supporters began lining up before 3 a.m. here to get one of the limited seats inside the courtroom and an overflow room broadcasting audio and video of the trial.

She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Previously on the stand in September, former lab worker Erika Cheung told the court that she grew worried about results from blood tests run on Theranos’s own devices, saying the machines were often not passing quality control checks.

“It was very concerning in a research context because once that translates to a patient setting, it’s giving you a good indication that the system isn’t working reliably enough to feel confident and comfortable in running patient samples,” she said.

She quit the job when she felt her concerns weren’t being listened to, and later reported an official complaint to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees clinical labs.

The trial, which was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Pacific on Monday, was delayed as the lead prosecutor and defense lawyer appeared to meet with the judge in chambers.

Holmes is expected to take the stand shortly for the second day in her trial where she is facing federal wire fraud charges.

Jurors had not yet been brought into the courtroom, and the two lead lawyers left the room through a door that leads to the judge’s chambers.

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