Walgreens cuts ties to blood-testing firm Theranos

New York

WALGREENS said on Sunday that it was terminating its relationship with Theranos, dealing a severe blow to the embattled blood-testing company. Walgreens said that it would immediately close all 40 of the Theranos testing centres in its Arizona drugstores, the source of most of Theranos' customers.

The giant retailer, a part of the Walgreens Boots Alliance, played a critical role in Theranos' early success. Founded by Elizabeth Holmes, a Stanford University dropout, the company promised to revolutionise the lab industry by being able to offer blood tests through a simple finger prick at a fraction of the cost of conventional testing.

But Theranos has run into a relentless barrage of negative publicity and regulatory scrutiny, and Walgreens has sought to extricate itself from its relationship with the Silicon Valley startup. Federal officials identified serious problems at Theranos' flagship lab in California, causing Walgreens to halt testing done there in January. The 40 Arizona locations remained open while Walgreens awaited regulators' decision, which included whet…