A reader writes:
I wonder how many folks, like me, had thought about buying the 23andme kit, hadn’t gotten around to it, and now, because of all the recent FDA publicity and worried they might miss the opportunity, went ahead and submitted their order. My kit should arrive in the mail today, and I plan to get it back to them ASAP, because I suspect they have received a flood of orders, thanks to the FDA. Because the genealogy part of the results are also those of my three sisters, they will be receiving those results from me as their belated Christmas gift.
Another gets an uneasy feeling:
I want to bring up another angle that I think has been under-appreciated. Anne Wojcicki, a co-founder of 23andMe, is married to Sergey Brin of Google (although they are now separated). Her sister Susan is Google’s director of marketing, and was also the person who rented her garage to Larry and Sergey when they started the company. Why is this important? Because 23andMe collects genetic data from people, along with their family and medical histories.
In a recent interview, Wojcicki said they hoped to reach a million customers by next year. Their stated business plan includes using this genetic data to find associations between genes and diseases. To my knowledge, no other entity can come close to amassing this amount of data, and people are voluntarily giving it to them as part of the service. To me, the $99 testing service is almost an inconsequential part of their business. It simply allows them to collect the data and turn it into biomedical discoveries. Despite the recent Supreme Court ruling that genes cannot be patented, there is still plenty of room to monetize therapies using this approach. All they need is a partner with the ability to process huge amounts of data and extract relevant gene/disease associations, and with Google they would have that. Presumably customers’ identities are kept private, and the data are analyzed anonymously. But of course there is always the concern that with big data, nothing is truly anonymous.
Update from another:
One thing that most people probably don’t realize is that the genetic information that 23andMe collects is not covered by federal healthcare privacy laws (HIPAA) because 23andMe’s customers pay out of pocket. For HIPAA to apply, the healthcare provider has to bill for reimbursement electronically. There are probably state laws that apply, but there is not federal protection for that information.
The Dish 