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 significant 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. Lately, the corporate’s inventory dipped under a greenback, placing it in peril of being delisted from the NASDAQ.
In a be aware to clients, the corporate stated nothing is presently 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. “Via 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 dwell 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 kin 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 would possibly occur to their knowledge 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 information. Doing so will hold DNA info from being utilized in future analysis, however it may well’t be faraway from analysis that has already been finished.
‘Get your knowledge out of there’
Arthur Caplan, head of the division of medical ethics at NYU’s Grossman Faculty of Drugs, has been crucial of 23andMe for many years. He stated he was not shocked by the announcement, having simply predicted it in January.
“They had been extra thinking about getting knowledge, saliva, to resell,” Caplan advised CNET. “It was marketed and obtained as a cute hobbyist type of factor. However that wasn’t actually the aim 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 excellent,” he stated, including with a sale of the corporate, there isn’t any authorized obligation to make sure buyer privateness underneath one other proprietor.
The dangers, Caplan stated, is that the information could possibly be utilized in methods individuals who’ve handed over their saliva cannot anticipate.
“DNA info may be very delicate — it may well let you know issues about paternity, it may well lead authorities companies to return after you that you just did not take into consideration,” he stated. “The genetic knowledge could possibly be used to promote or market to you. A 3rd social gathering may resolve you are not eligible for insurance coverage.
“My recommendation is get your knowledge out of there. I’d not depart it there and it could be too late,” Caplan stated.
