(CNBC) — The world's youngest female billionaire said Tuesday her company, Theranos, which aims to democratize blood tests to enable early detection of diseases, is not for sale.
"We're not going to be bought," Elizabeth Holmes told CNBC's "Squawk Box." If approached, she said, she would say "we have an incredibly long-term vision and we're flattered by the call, but we're just getting started."
And what a start it's been.
At just 19, Holmes founded Palo Alto, California-based Theranos in 2003, and dropped out of Stanford University a year later. She's raised more than $400 million in funding, and she owns 50 percent of the diagnostics company, which is valued at $9 billion.
She said her "traumatic fear of blood" helped motivate her to build Theranos. "It [also] came from losing my family members and people that I loved, and the belief ... the true legacy of Silicon Valley is to build great products that can make a difference in the world."