23andMe, the corporate whose mail-in self-testing kits turned synonymous with DNA testing, is submitting for chapter amid slowing gross sales 4 years after it went public. Anne Wojcicki, who co-founded 23andMe in 2006, is stepping down as CEO as the corporate tries to discover a purchaser.
In January, 23andMe stated it was exploring choices for a sale amid slowing demand for its product and the fallout of a serious knowledge breach in 2023. In 2024, the corporate agreed to a monetary settlement for the breach, which affected 6.9 million customers. The corporate had additionally introduced layoffs of about 40% of its workforce in late 2024. Just lately, the corporate’s inventory dipped under a greenback, placing it at risk of being delisted from the NASDAQ.
In a be aware to clients, the corporate stated nothing is at present altering about the way in which it shops, manages or protects buyer knowledge and that the corporate continues to be open for enterprise and promoting DNA kits. “By way of this course of, we are going to search to discover a associate who shares our dedication to buyer knowledge privateness and permits our mission of serving to individuals entry, perceive and profit from the human genome to stay on,” the corporate stated in its submit.
At its peak, 23andMe turned the best-known identify within the rising space of DNA self-testing, with customers paying $99 for kits that gave them insights into their genetic make-up, potential family members and ancestry. However the firm’s momentum slowed down lately after its $3.5 billion public providing in 2021.
Individuals who have used 23andMe and are involved about what would possibly occur to their knowledge in a sale have choices: They will obtain their info then delete their account, in addition to ask the corporate to discard their DNA materials along with deleting the information. Doing so will maintain DNA info from being utilized in future analysis, however it will probably’t be faraway from analysis that has already been performed.
‘Get your knowledge out of there’
Arthur Caplan, head of the division of medical ethics at NYU’s Grossman College of Drugs, has been important of 23andMe for many years. He stated he was not stunned by the announcement, having simply predicted it in January.
“They had been extra curious about getting knowledge, saliva, to resell,” Caplan instructed CNET. “It was marketed and obtained as a cute hobbyist type of factor. However that wasn’t actually the purpose that gave it the billions of {dollars} of worth it as soon as had.”
Caplan stated the corporate’s enterprise mannequin promised ancestry info that he believes was not dependable to start with.
“I do not suppose the science was superb,” he stated, including with a sale of the corporate, there is not any authorized obligation to make sure buyer privateness beneath one other proprietor.
The dangers, Caplan stated, is that the information might be utilized in methods individuals who’ve handed over their saliva cannot anticipate.
“DNA info may be very delicate — it will probably inform you issues about paternity, it will probably lead authorities businesses to return after you that you just did not take into consideration,” he stated. “The genetic knowledge might be used to promote or market to you. A 3rd occasion may resolve you are not eligible for insurance coverage.
“My recommendation is get your knowledge out of there. I might not go away it there and it could be too late,” Caplan stated.
