The price of unlocking the secrets of your DNA has dropped to stocking-stuffer range as Google-backed 23andMe said today that a major new investment was allowing them to offer their personal gene scans for $99.
The company co-founded and run by Anne Wojcicki, wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, announced Tuesday that it had raised $50 million in its latest round of venture capital funding. Wojcicki told WIRED the money was a “game-changer” because it allows the company to bring the scans down to $99 from the previous regular price of $299, effective today.
The goal, she said, was to reach 1 million customers by the end of 2013, up from 180,000 now. The point isn’t just to expand the customer base, but to expand the 80-person company’s database of genetic information. The more DNA data, the company hopes, the better the chances of making discoveries that reveal new connections between human genetics and human health.
“With a million individuals actively engaged, it really sets the stage for an era of molecular medicine,” says Wojcicki — an era that she and others who believe in the promise of personal genomics hope will mean medical decisions tailored to individuals based on their specific genetic makeup.
The scanning service offered by 23andMe doesn’t sequence a person’s entire 3 billion-letter genome. Instead, the scans look at one million sections along the length of a person’s DNA where research has located genetic variations that contribute to specific health risks and physical traits. The company analyzes those variations and reports back more than 200 findings, from whether you have a genetic predisposition to flush red when you drink alcohol to whether you carry the mutation that can cause cystic fibrosis in your children.
You also have the option to allow those findings — stripped of personally identifying information — to become part of 23andMe’s database. Though your genes are by definition personal information, Wojcicki says about 90 percent of customers opt in to share their results. This is good for 23andMe, since the profit potential of selling personal gene scans pales next to the possibility of fishing a major medical breakthrough out of that sea of DNA data.
But predicting the likelihood of such a breakthrough remains more art than science. When it launched five years ago, 23andMe made a splash both because of the Google family ties and because of the excitement surrounding then then-new field of personal genomics made possible by the radical drop in price of DNA sequencing. Since then, the cost of reading the As, Cs, Ts and Gs that encode life’s instructions has only gotten cheaper. But understanding what those instructions mean has proven more complicated than originally hoped.
Along with setbacks in the science, 23andMe itself has endured its share of troubles. From the outset, some critics complained the company overpromised how much insight its results really offered. The company has always made the disclaimer that its results were meant for “informational purposes” only and that no one should make any medical decisions without consulting a doctor. But such warnings weren’t enough for members of Congress, or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which warned 23andMe and several other companies in 2010 that its products qualified as medical tests and were therefore subject to the agency’s approval process.
Since then, however, 23andMe’s scans have remained for sale, even as the company has sometimes struggled not just with outside forces but to define its relevance as the promise of gene-based personalized medicine has been slower to materialize than some had hoped. Wojcicki says the company is still in discussions with the FDA and that she’s pleased with the agency’s willingness to stay engaged with the issues.
Her optimism also shows in the money that she and her husband both put up as part of the $50 million. Other backers behind this latest funding include New Enterprise Associates, Google Ventures and MPM Capital, all of which were already investors in 23andMe. The company also welcomed a new believer this round: Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, a major investor in Facebook, Zynga, Groupon and Twitter, among other companies.
It will be interesting to track how 23andMe tries to convince more than 800,000 consumers that $now is the right time to get their DNA scanned, especially when so many shinier tech baubles beckon for about the same amount of money. But with $50 million and some of the heaviest heavyweights in Silicon Valley behind it, the company has a whole new chance to make the case that the future of medicine is not only here but available for the low, low price of 99 bucks.
Getting Your DNA Scanned Now Costs Less Than an iPhone 5
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Getting Your DNA Scanned Now Costs Less Than an iPhone 5
