HOUSTON, Texas – Have you ever heard of 23andMe?
It’s a biotechnology company that provides direct-to-consumer genetic testing. But now, that company is experiencing financial woes, leaving customers with lingering questions.
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Since going public in 2021, the company has struggled to find a profitable business model since most of its 15 million buyers only need to purchase one of its saliva-based testing kits.
The company reported a net loss of $667 million for its last fiscal year, more than double the loss of $312 million for the year prior.
The company is now laying off 40% of its workforce, more than 200 employees, in an attempt to cut costs.
This sparked concerns among customers about the security and future of their DNA data.
Monday morning at around 6:30 a.m., KPRC 2 reporter Rilwan Balogun will speak with researchers about what could happen to the company’s 15 million customers’ data if 23andMe doesn’t recover.
One of those customers, Sandy Zimmer, decided to try 23andMe on a whim. She said it was a Prime Day sale, and she saw it as an opportunity to explore her health profile.
“I wanted to see what I could find out about my health and through the DNA than ancestry because we’ve had other family members who have done that,” Zimmer said.
When the results came in, Zimmer said she found them interesting but not life-changing.
“There was nothing in it that was troubling. It was very generic,” she said.
But as news broke about 23andMe’s financial struggles, Zimmer said she became concerned about her DNA being sold and the impact it could have on health insurance coverage.
“I’m just not happy with the idea of my DNA being sold,” she said.
According to 23andMe’s website, the company says that “if we are involved in a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, your Personal Information may be accessed, sold or transferred as part of that transaction and this Privacy Statement will apply to your Personal Information as transferred to the new entity,” the company says. “We may also disclose Personal Information about you to our corporate affiliates to help operate our services and our affiliates’ services.”
However, it does allow people opt-out “If, at any time, you are no longer interested in participating in our Services, you may delete your 23andMe account directly within your Account Settings,” the company states on its website.
That requires you to log in to your account and submit a request. The company then emails you a data deletion request confirmation, which you must verify. Then deletion process begins.
But despite the uncertainty, Zimmer said she still hasn’t deleted her data.
“I read on the 23andMe website when I was looking up how to delete the data, that you can delete a lot of the genetic information, but they can’t guarantee what’s still kept and what’s deleted. Like, your name is still going to be in the database. People are going to know that. I don’t know if it still stores the genetic sample, but maybe not the analysis of it, but it says your data is never 100% deleted from them. So that was another reason I thought, well, you know, is it really going to do any good to do the deletion? Zimmer questioned.
As customers like Zimmer weigh whether to delete their data, one thing is clear: 23andMe’s challenges have opened a broader conversation about the ethics of genetic testing. What happens to your DNA when the company you trusted to safeguard it starts to plummet?
“I do feel like that’s probably the future, though. Whether it’s 23andMe or any other place that you’ve given a sample that can be used for DNA. I think with the way things are progressing in the technology field, I do feel like whether it’s 23andMe or somebody else, this data is going to be out there and probably within the next 10 years, it’s going to impact everybody as far as health insurance and life insurance,” Zimmer said.
