Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. In the meantime, her partner is starting one of his own.
Billy Evans, who has two children with Ms. Holmes, is trying to raise money for a company that describes itself as “the future of diagnostics” and “a radically new approach to health testing,” according to marketing materials reviewed by The New York Times.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because Theranos similarly aimed to revolutionize diagnostic testing. The Silicon Valley start-up captured the world’s attention by claiming, falsely as it turned out, to have developed a blood-testing device that could run a slew of complex lab tests from a mere finger prick.
Mr. Evans’s company is named Haemanthus, which is a flower also known as the blood lily. It plans to begin with testing pets for diseases before progressing to humans, according to two investors pitched on the company who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had agreed to keep the plans secret. Mr. Evans’s marketing materials, which lay out hopes to eventually raise more than $50 million, say the ultimate goal is nothing short of “human health optimization.”
The Haemanthus testing device.Credit…Haemanthus
A photo provided to potential investors of the start-up’s prototype bears more than a passing physical resemblance to Theranos’s infamous blood-testing machine, variously known as the Edison or miniLab. The device that Mr. Evans’s company is developing is a rectangular contraption with a door, a digital display screen and what the investor materials describe as tunable lasers inside.
