Fallen US biotech star Elizabeth Holmes, who was once hailed as second Steve Jobs, was sentenced Friday to just over 11 years in prison for defrauding investors with her Silicon Valley startup firm Theranos.

Holmes had persuaded her investors for over 15 years that she had developed a revolutionary medical device that could scan an array of health problems with just a few drops of blood. But the technology never worked, and the claims were false.

The 135-month sentence handed down Friday marks the climactic point in a saga that ignited a debate on the US tech sector’s “fake it ‘til you make it” ethos and the investment community’s willingness to embrace charismatic company founders.

After securing lucrative contracts with Walgreens and others, the promise of Holmes’s Edison machine quickly unravelled. The company began using off-the-shelf technology made by the likes of Siemens to carry out tests instead, and sometimes delivered incorrect results.

While wooing investors, Holmes leveraged a high-powered Theranos board that included former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who testified against her during her trial, and two former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger and the late George Shultz, whose son, Alexander submitted a statement blasting Holmes for concocting a scheme that played Shultz "for the fool.”

Holmes’s sentencing is less than what the US federal prosecutors sought, which was a 15-year jail term and around $800 million in restitution to investors. However, US District Judge Edward Davila left that question for a future hearing that has not been scheduled.

"For almost a decade, Elizabeth Holmes fabricated and spread elaborate falsehoods to draw in a legion of capital investors, both big and small, and her deceit caused the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars," the prosecutor said in a statement following the judge's decision. She will not have to surrender herself until April, news agency AFP reported, citing a California court ruling.

Holmes, before sentencing, told the court, “I stand before you taking responsibility for Theranos. I loved Theranos. It was my life's work." She further said, "I am devastated by my failings. Every day for the past years I have felt deep pain for what people went through because I failed them."

U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila announced the sentencing Friday after a hearing that lasted over four hours. 

Image source: AFP