Media billionaire Rupert Murdoch is expected to lose the $US100 million ($134 million) he invested in scandal-ridden blood testing group, Theranos - thanks to some great investigative journalism by one of his own newspapers, The Wall Street Journal.

It was the Journal which first raised doubts about the claims of the company's celebrity CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, who was a billionaire at 30 and being dubbed the Steve Jobs of biotechnology.

The great promise of Theranos is that it could conduct the full range of laboratory tests - ranging from cholesterol to herpes - using just a few drops from a fingertip pin-prick instead of a needle and syringe.

It was expected to revolutionise healthcare affordability, and led Murdoch and other wealthy investors to inject $US632 million in Theranos between 2014 and 2015, which valued the company at $US9 billion.