Posted on 02/18/2024 5:39:11 PM PST by Red Badger
The consumer genome sequencing company 23andMe is a sinking ship – and its CEO is conducting the orchestra.
As Wired reports, 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki was chipper on a February 7 earnings call despite the company's abysmal revenue report that led to its stock being devalued to below 75 cents per share, down a whopping 93 percent from the $16.04 when it first went public.
"We are an unusual company," Wojcicki said, per Wired, during the investor call.
That response very much undersells the circumstances that may lead to 23andMe spinning off its consumer DNA testing and therapeutics wings into separate entities, like so many unraveled strands of double helixes.
That fateful earnings parley occurred just after the third anniversary of 23andMe announcing that it would be going public in 2021 and merging with a specialized holding company owned by none other than billionaire Richard Branson. The company was valued at a whopping $3.5 billion as a result, and later that same year, it purchased the Lemonaid telehealth service — but didn't unveil its tony rebranded version, a $99-per-month service now called Total Health, until this past November.
"It’s an evolution for the company in terms of just providing access to your genome," Wojcicki told Wired, "to now putting the wrapper around it and saying, 'We actually want to take care of you. We want to be your partner in prevention.'"
That's all fine and good, but it doesn't negate the fact that in only three years, 23andMe has burned through more than half its fundraised cash, gone through multiple layoff rounds, and could, as the Wall Street Journal reported last week, run out of money by next year.
While its therapeutic wing has been in the works for years, the database that undergirds its slow-going research, which is gleaned from its customers' genetic information, may also have spelled the beginning of its downfall. That database was the subject of a massive hack last year, and between that breach and the money it burned in the years since going public, things are looking bleak.
To be fair, Wojcicki's Pollyanna-ism isn't entirely blind. In an interview with Bloomberg last week, she seemed to at least acknowledge the financial hit the company's therapeutic arm has brought upon it.
"When we decided to do drug discovery," she said, "it was a commitment to saying we are going to be burning cash."
Facing down all that context, the investors whose confidence drove the company to its multi-billion-dollar valuation are clearly getting worried. Now, as 23andMe faces the risk of being delisted by Nasdaq because its stock price is in the toilet, Wojcicki says she's "optimistic" about the future.
"I think it’s a really exciting time," she told Wired. "I think that there’s going to be incredible advances in healthcare, and honestly, I’m most interested in how you shift the curve on people."
To Wojcicki's mind, the future — of 23andMe and the healthtech industry at large — will "be about integrating" genetic data into "more efficient drug discovery," a statement that belies her self-declared optimistic nature.
There is, of course, no doubt that genomic medicine is going to continue to grow — but whether 23andMe will be part of it, or even continue to exist at all, remains to be seen.
Nephew
Well, you can think they charge, and I can think they give it for free.
And then we can argue about when a request might NOT be legally valid.
Niney-three per cent loss. Tis but a scratch!
Insurance companies place a value in not insuring people with a pre-disposition toward certain diseases. I suppose this data would be helpful for them. Go figure.
They goofed on too many whites by including a small percentage of sub-Saharan African in their profiles.
Does that mean we can get reparations?
“You might as well just send your DNA straight to the ChiComs and Alphabet feral government agencies and cut out the 23&Me middle man, because they are going to sell it to them anyway.”
12.5.23, 3:09 PM EST
/
BY
SHARON ADARLO
OOPS! 23ANDME ADMITS HACKERS STOLE 7 MILLION CUSTOMERS’ GENETIC DATA
IMAGINE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION FROM A DNA WEBSITE BEING USED AGAINST YOU!
In the last couple of years, all types of previous life’s stories for individuals have been exposed as B$ due to DNA testing in our little circle of relatives, friends, neighbors and just non related people in the past and now.
Some DNA findings have turned out to be positive and some not so positive.
The most often exposure has been, “Our Daddy was/is not our DNA Daddy!”
More DNA news or no DNA taken from so called Migrants:
Whistleblower reveals DHS didn’t collect DNA from 60% of migrants.
https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com ^ | 3-6-24 | STEPHEN DINAN
Posted on 3/6/2024, 2:03:03 AM by Enterprise
Homeland Security is collecting DNA from less than 40% of illegal immigrants encountered trying to enter the U.S., a whistleblower has told Congress.
The department is required to collect the DNA under federal law, but Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, said it’s usually not happening.
Between Oct. 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023 the department’s Customs and Border Protection agency encountered 2.3 million unauthorized migrants. It only provided roughly 843,000 DNA samples to the FBI, which runs the national database, Mr. Grassley said, citing information provided by the whistleblower.
He called the lapse “deeply concerning.” “This failure weakens our justice system and empowers criminals to illegally cross our border, jeopardizing American lives,” the senator said.
In a letter to Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Mr. Grassley asked the department to reveal whether DNA was collected from Jose Antonio Ibarra, the illegal immigrant from Venezuela who now stands accused of killing Laken Riley, a student, on the campus of a college in Georgia.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com ...
In the last couple of years, all types of previous life’s stories for individuals have been exposed as B$ due to DNA testing in our little circle of relatives, friends, neighbors and just non related people in the past and now.
Some DNA findings have turned out to be positive and some not so positive.
Just Another Obamanomics company practicing the Bud Light Kamikaze business plan.
I would believe Baghdad Bob before any Biden official................
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