“AFTER ALL THE DELAYS, the partnership seemed to finally be getting off the ground in the early months of 2012: as a beta run before a full launch, the companies had agreed that Theranos would take over the blood testing at an employee health clinic Safeway had opened on its corporate campus in Pleasanton. The clinic was part of Burd’s strategy to curb the supermarket operator’s health-care costs by encouraging its workers to take better care of themselves.”
Carreyrou's first article was October 2015. I think the Walgreens stuff had kicked off by then too. The FDA probably took a while to deal with it. But by putting a non-working instrument in a consumer facing context they were clearly going to get involved at some point.
If they hadn’t done that, I don’t think it would have been a news story, or that legal action would have been taken.
This stuff happens relatively often, investors just right-off the investment (or otherwise try and dump it).