(Bloomberg) -- Theranos Inc., the heralded Silicon Valleyblood-testing startup facing scrutinyover the accuracy of its technology, said it has scaled back theuse of proprietary finger-pricking technique to a single test outof the 200 it offers.

The decision limits the use of a technology that has helpedTheranos raise venture-capital funding at a valuation of about $10billion and has drawn interest from high-profile partners.

Now Theranos is using the same blood-testing equipment ascompetitors it’s attempting to challenge, such as Quest DiagnosticsInc. and Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings.

Read: Insured are willing to get routine bloodtests

The move is temporary and is part of a plan to get U.S.regulators to review its offerings one by one, Chief ExecutiveOfficer Elizabeth Holmes said in an interview. The company said itwill expand the use of its technology, which it has claimed canperform accurate tests with only few drops of blood, once theU.S. Food and Drug Administrationclears additional tests.

Theranos started voluntarily limiting its technology to a singletest--for herpes--this year, according to the company.

Holmes and Theranos are under fire after an article in the Wall Street Journal questionedthe accuracy of its technology.

Holmes said Thursday that Theranos’s services are ‘‘accurate andreliable,” while calling the Journal’s story “factually andscientifically erroneous.”

The Wall Street Journal stands by its story, said ColleenSchwartz, a spokeswoman for the newspaper.

Holmes’s comments in the interview with Bloomberg News were thefirst time she has disclosed that Theranos had temporarily stoppedusing its proprietary technology for all but one of its tests.

The company had previously said it was doing some traditionalblood draws from the vein in addition to its finger- stick methodbecause it decided to add other specialty tests to its menu.

Venture-capital backers

Theranos’s venture-capital backers include DFJ, ATA Ventures andbillionaire Larry Ellison’s Tako Ventures. DFJ and ATA didn’timmediately reply to requests for comment Friday, and Tako Venturescouldn’t immediately be reached. Holmes, 31, has a net worth of $5billion, according the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Theranos has sought to challenge competitors Quest and LabCorpby offering lower prices and promising quicker results.

The startup lists its prices online at what it says are steepdiscounts to competitors, seeking to let individuals order testswithout needing insurance coverage. The herpes test costs $9.07,according to the company’s website.

Holmes said she’s confident Theranos will live up to itspromise. “Every time you do something innovative, people want toknock you down because they built you up. They say it’s crazy, itcould never be done, and eventually you change the world.”

Theranos has 130 more tests waiting for FDA clearance. Thecompany hadn’t previously disclosed how many tests were usingtraditional blood test technology, rather than the company’s newmethod, because the situation was fluid, Holmes said.

“We’ve been transitioning to the FDA system voluntarily,” Holmessaid.

FDA report

In a separate article late Thursday, the Journal said that theFDA recently visited Theranos for an unannounced inspection andconcluded that the data the company had submitted for many of itstests was insufficient.

The Journal said Theranos had dialed back use of its tests atthe FDA’s behest. Theranos didn’t immediately respond to callsseeking comment on the Thursday article.

The FDA declined to comment.

For now, most blood tests going through Theranos are being runon non-Theranos devices. Holmes said.

“We do two things: We have the Theranos system, our proprietarydevices, and then we use conventional, FDA-cleared devices that areused in accordance with the manufacturers’ instructions to run thetest,” Holmes said.

‘Gold standard’

While the FDA hasn’t required review of such diagnostic tests,the agency is attempting to increase its oversight of them asstartups entering diagnostics and DNA analysis launch newbusinesses. Holmes previously said criticism by competitors thather company hadn’t published data on how the tests work is a “redherring.”

“They haven’t filed any of their lab tests with the FDA, andwe’re trying to create a model with the FDA being the goldstandard,” she said in July.

The company has announced deals with insurers and health- careproviders including Capital BlueCross, AmeriHealth Caritas and theCleveland Clinic to promote Theranos blood tests. Theranos also hasa partnership with Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., the biggestdrugstore chain in the U.S.

“Capital BlueCross has a strong strategic partnership withTheranos and we expect that to continue to develop and grow,” saidJoe Butera, a spokesman for the health insurance company. SinceCapital BlueCross began a partnership with Theranos in July, “wehave not heard of any customer or physician concerns about the testresults,” he said in an e-mail.

AmeriHealth Caritas and the Cleveland Clinic aren’t currentlyusing Theranos’s technology, said Amy Knapp, an AmeriHealthspokeswoman, and Eileen Sheil, a Cleveland Clinic spokeswoman.

“We are in the initial stages of reviewing the framework todeploy our strategy,” Knapp wrote in an e-mail. “We are committedto ensuring our members have access to quality health care andservice and that our service providers meet regulatoryrequirements.”

Theranos’s partnership with the Cleveland Clinic “is aboutputting a long-term relationship in place” and the clinic advisesTheranos on how to run clinical studies on its tests, Holmes said.The company wants to work with AmeriHealth on expanding to Medicaidpatients in the future, she said.

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