Theranos, a $9 billion Silicon Valley startup that says it can run a full range of lab tests using mere drops of blood instead of whole vials, came under fire this month after the Wall Street Journal reported the vast majority of the company’s tests were run on traditional machines, not groundbreaking new technology. Now Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has promised to release data that will purportedly prove her company’s tech works.

“Bowing to criticism,” the New York Times reported, “the founder and chief executive of the beleaguered medical testing company Theranos said on Monday that the firm would publish data validating the accuracy and reliability of its tests.”

This is a turn from Holmes’ original PR strategy, which chalked up the WSJ story to disgruntled ex-employees and backward-thinking regressives who are afraid of Silicon Valley disruption.

“This is what happens when you work to change things,” Holmes said on CNBC’s Mad Money. “First they think you’re crazy, then they fight you, and then all of a sudden you change the world.”

A company statement dismissed the Wall Street Journal as “grounded in baseless assertions by inexperienced and disgruntled former employees and industry incumbents.”

But Theranos now seems to be taking the criticism seriously. Holmes has promised to release data comparing its test to existing methods and its tiny, finger-prick samples to tradition blood draws, the Times reports. Holmes didn’t say where or when the data would be published.

The data dump would speak directly to one of the major criticisms against Theranos—it’s secretive, and has yet to publish any data in peer-reviewed journals. Holmes said Monday that the company preferred to submit its data to the FDA, and that when the agency eventually released decisions, that would be “so much more transparent a model” than publishing in journals.

It’s worth noting that before the Journal’s report, major news outlets basically held up Holmes—a 31-year-old who dropped out of Stanford at 19, started Theranos, and is now a billionaire—as the second coming of Steve Jobs.

Before criticizing Holmes and Theranos for their secrecy this week, the New Yorker ran a mostly positive profile of the CEO, and described Theranos as having “a stealth common to many Silicon Valley startups.”

Even the WSJ, back in 2013, set up Theranos as the scrappy startup rebel disrupting the “empire” of the health industry.

Now everyone wants to see the proof.

[NYT. Photo: AP Images]