23andMe is becoming a publicly-traded company through a merger with Virgin’s VG Acquisition. Engadget reports: The deal values 23andMe at about $3.5 billion and should give the company the finances it wants to boost its personal healthcare and therapeutics plans. It should have over $900 million in cash, for instance. The merger is expected to close in the second quarter of…
Tag: 23andMe
The best DNA testing service is just $99 this Amazon Prime Day
DNA testing 23andMe is now just $99 for Prime Day and covers health and ancestry reports Source: https://www.livescience.com/news/the-best-dna-testing-service-is-just-dollar99-this-amazon-prime-day
Biotech Startup Aims to Make Use of Humanity’s Genetic Outliers
pacopico writes: A startup called Variant Bio has quietly been going around the world for the past couple of years, looking for genetic outliers. We’re talking about people with super high metabolisms, amazing eyesight, the ability to hold their breaths for really long times. Variant wants to sequence their DNA and come up with a new class of drugs based off…
DNA firms are set to profit from your data as testing demand falls
23andMe and Ancestry are laying off staff as sales slump – but there’s plenty of profit to be made from their huge DNA databases Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2232770-dna-firms-are-set-to-profit-from-your-data-as-testing-demand-falls/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Slate Announces List of The 30 Most Evil Tech Companies
An anonymous reader quotes Slate: Separating out the meaningful threats from the noise is hard. Is Facebook really the danger to democracy it looks like? Is Uber really worse than the system it replaced? Isn’t Amazon’s same-day delivery worth it? Which harms are real and which are hypothetical? Has the techlash gotten it right? And which of these companies is really…
23andMe Licenses Antibody It Developed From its Genetic Database To Spanish Firm Almirall
23andMe has licensed an antibody it developed from its genetic database to treat inflammatory diseases to Spanish drugmaker Almirall SA. “The deal, announced by Almirall in a filing with Spanish regulators on Thursday, marks the first time that 23andMe has licensed a drug compound that it has developed itself,” reports Bloomberg. From the report: Leveraging its genetic data to develop drugs…
23andMe has sold the rights to develop a drug based on its users’ DNA
Consumer genomics firm 23andMe has signed its first deal to sell the rights to develop a new drug for inflammatory diseases to a pharmaceutical company Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2229828-23andme-has-sold-the-rights-to-develop-a-drug-based-on-its-users-dna/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
23andMe DNA Testing Kits Up to 50% Off for Black Friday
Go beyond your family tree to uncover ancestry markers in your DNA, with a genetic testing kit that you can use at home. Source: https://www.livescience.com/61016-black-friday-deal-23andme.html
The World’s First Gattaca Baby Tests Are Finally Here
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Anxious couples are approaching fertility doctors in the US with requests for a hotly debated new genetic test being called “23andMe, but on embryos.” The baby-picking test is being offered by a New Jersey startup company, Genomic Prediction, whose plans we first reported on two years ago. The company says it…
‘Game-Changer’ Warrant Let Detective Search Genetic Database
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Last week, a Florida detective announced at a police convention that he had obtained a warrant to penetrate GEDmatch and search its full database of nearly one million users. Legal experts said that this appeared to be the first time a judge had approved such a warrant, and that the…