Genetic testing company 23andMe isn’t going away, despite declaring bankruptcy. The company and nearly all of its assets, including its biobank of customer genetic samples, have been purchased by American biotechnology company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for a cool $256 million, the highest bid submitted in the once-hot startup’s bankruptcy auction.
The purchase, announced Monday, will place 23andMe’s brand as well as its Personal Genome Service (PGS), Total Health, and Research Services under the control of New York-based Regeneron. It’ll also continue to operate the company’s consumer-facing genome services without interruption, meaning you can still buy those DNA-testing kits off the shelves of big-box retailers to learn about your family history and health.
Of all of the potential landing spots for 23andMe—and, more importantly, the data of more than 15 million people who have submitted genetic samples to the company—Regeneron is one of the softer options available. There was legitimate concern that the company’s biobank could have been scooped up by unscrupulous actors. The bankruptcy sale saw California’s Attorney General urge citizens to request that 23andMe delete their data and prompted a probe from lawmakers concerned about how the company handled the sensitive information it collected.
Your mileage may vary on just how much you trust Regeneron, a company that sequences exomes to find novel drug targets, with consumer data, but it’s (probably) better than having 23andMe land in the hands of some private equity ghouls. Regeneron is best known in the public consciousness for its experimental “antibody cocktail” developed in response to the covid-19 pandemic—the treatment that Donald Trump took when he tested positive in October 2020.
Things have been dicey for 23andMe for a while now, so perhaps the new parent company will provide some stability. The company went public in 2021 and was at one point valued at $6 billion before a series of high-profile failures dragged its value almost to $0. The company tried to capitalize on its trove of DNA data to develop drugs but only ever got two to the point of human testing. It tried to launch a subscription service with personalized health reports and lifestyle advice but failed to hit even half of its goal for sign-ups, per the Wall Street Journal.
Then came the data breach. In 2023, the company experienced a breach that it initially said affected about 14,000 people. The real figure turned out to be closer to 6.9 million, who had their names, birth years, relationship labels, family names, and locations exposed. People who opted into the DNA Relatives feature, which allows people to identify and connect with genetic relatives, had their Family Tree profiles accessed. The situation did serious damage to the company’s reputation, which isn’t great when your business is reliant on people trusting you with their most personal data
English (US) ·