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 mentioned it was exploring choices for a sale amid slowing demand for its product and the fallout of a serious information 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 beneath a greenback, placing it in peril of being delisted from the NASDAQ.
In a observe to clients, the corporate mentioned nothing is presently altering about the way in which it shops, manages or protects buyer information and that the corporate remains to be open for enterprise and promoting DNA kits. “By way of this course of, we’ll search to discover a companion who shares our dedication to buyer information privateness and permits our mission of serving to individuals entry, perceive and profit from the human genome to reside on,” the corporate mentioned in its submit.
At its peak, 23andMe turned the best-known title within the rising space of DNA self-testing, with customers paying $99 for kits that gave them insights into their genetic make-up, potential kinfolk and ancestry. However the firm’s momentum slowed down in recent times after its $3.5 billion public providing in 2021.
Individuals who have used 23andMe and are involved about what may occur to their information in a sale have choices: They’ll obtain their info then delete their account, in addition to ask the corporate to discard their DNA materials along with deleting the info. Doing so will maintain DNA info from being utilized in future analysis, however it could’t be faraway from analysis that has already been completed.
‘Get your information out of there’
Arthur Caplan, head of the division of medical ethics at NYU’s Grossman College of Drugs, has been crucial of 23andMe for many years. He mentioned he was not shocked by the announcement, having simply predicted it in January.
“They have been extra excited about getting information, saliva, to resell,” Caplan advised CNET. “It was marketed and obtained as a cute hobbyist form of factor. However that wasn’t actually the purpose that gave it the billions of {dollars} of worth it as soon as had.”
Caplan mentioned the corporate’s enterprise mannequin promised ancestry info that he believes was not dependable to start with.
“I do not suppose the science was excellent,” he mentioned, including with a sale of the corporate, there is not any authorized obligation to make sure buyer privateness below one other proprietor.
The dangers, Caplan mentioned, is that the info could possibly be utilized in methods individuals who’ve handed over their saliva cannot anticipate.
“DNA info could be very delicate — it could inform you issues about paternity, it could lead authorities companies to come back after you that you simply did not take into consideration,” he mentioned. “The genetic information could possibly be used to promote or market to you. A 3rd get together might resolve you are not eligible for insurance coverage.
“My recommendation is get your information out of there. I might not depart it there and it is perhaps too late,” Caplan mentioned.
