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23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

forbes.com

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Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#71

Post by Karunamon »

lfuller wrote: post #44
hueving wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It has to do with the FDA protecting the public from crappy medical devices and drugs. Which devices and drugs were 23&Me selling? I thought it was just crowd-sourced information about traits. Think how ridiculous it would be if the FDA just shut down a crowd-sourced database about trait correlations. But suddenly when a company like 23&Me correlates the two, it becomes pure, concentrated evil that must be subject t…

23&Me was using a medical test to give users data regarding their risks of certain diseases without sufficiently proving to the FDA that that data was accurate. It's not a stretch to imagine someone acting on that information with potentially dangerous results; taking extra unneeded supplements, having elective surgery, dramatically changing their lifestyle to reduce the risk of some condition, etc.

I'm so happy the FDA was there to prevent this company from doing the things with my genetic information that I asked them to do. Thank god for government.

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#72

Post by 2bitencryption »

streptomycin wrote: post #34
dekhn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not correct. The FDA made them stop doing something they were doing illegally. Their genetic test is a medical device and they didn't have federal approval. Further, when the FDA informed them they needed approval, they didn't respond. The FDA finally had to invoke the law. Also, I don't think 23&Me's test results have enough medical value to be used for evaluating health risks. Further, 23&me's database has s…

Also, I don't think 23&Me's test results have enough medical value to be used for evaluating health risks. For some things they do, like they test for mutations related to Alzheimer's that can drastically alter risk, ranging from "you're probably never going to get it" to "you're probably going to get it, and there's a good chance it'll be much earlier than you would have imagined". But their marketing material was v…

Do they actually still show the Alzheimer's information? If so, I'd be very interested in doing that...

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#73

Post by 2bitencryption »

amelius wrote: post #49

I don't like this sentence from the wikipedia page [1]: > The price of the full direct to consumer testing service in the United States has reduced from $999 in 2007 to $99 in 2012, and it is effectively being sold as a loss leader in order to build a valuable customer database . First, why can't companies these days just sell me a product for the cost price plus a margin? This seems like a fair way of doing business…

You misunderstand. The point is that the more data they have, the more valuable and "accurate" their analysis is -- it's like crowdsourcing genetics by building one large database.

So your complaint of "why don't they just sell it at the cost plus a margin" doesn't work here. They're dropping the price because they're paying you for your information to make their service better.

It's like Tumblr not having ads (for a period of time). "Why are you giving this to me for free?" you ask. Because then you're more likely to use us, and then we'll have a bigger user base and make tons of money later.

That's how SAAS models can give away their "service" for free and still be valued at billions of dollars.

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#74

Post by throwaway_xgqtr »

Karunamon wrote: post #70
throwaway_xgqtr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, could you explain in a bit more detail? It sounds like what you're saying is that your sister's husband signed up for 23andMe and sent in his DNA sample. Then, 23andMe said "based on your DNA, we believe another of our members is likely your niece, here is her contact info...". Then, your sister's husband contacted this person (the potential niece), and after some chatting it seemed likely that your sister…

Invasion of privacy? Considering that you can't even get the health information now, ancestry matching is literally the only reason to use the service. Why would you sign up and go through the whole spitting in a cup song and dance if you didn't want to find relatives?

Oh, wow, I am out of date. I didn't realize they had pivoted in that way. Sorry for the distraction :)

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#75

Post by dekhn »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #26
dekhn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct. They put a stop to 23&Me. There is still plenty of crowd-DNA research going on; for example, my genome and some medical information is online via GCG.

http://www.personalgenomes.org

Sorry, I meant PGP not GCG (GCG was an old bioinformatics software).

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#77

Post by dekhn »

streptomycin wrote: post #34
dekhn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not correct. The FDA made them stop doing something they were doing illegally. Their genetic test is a medical device and they didn't have federal approval. Further, when the FDA informed them they needed approval, they didn't respond. The FDA finally had to invoke the law. Also, I don't think 23&Me's test results have enough medical value to be used for evaluating health risks. Further, 23&me's database has s…

Also, I don't think 23&Me's test results have enough medical value to be used for evaluating health risks. For some things they do, like they test for mutations related to Alzheimer's that can drastically alter risk, ranging from "you're probably never going to get it" to "you're probably going to get it, and there's a good chance it'll be much earlier than you would have imagined". But their marketing material was v…

All of those diseases that 23&Me reported on have existing single-purpose genetic tests which are far more accurate.

I've done full-genome too. The report (first from Illumina, then from another site I uploaded my VCFs) was medically useless: I read all the top risks, then did additional research, and found that the risks they reported were contradicted by other SNPs (for example, they'll say you are at risk for X, but only if you have Y SNPs and Z SNPs, and if you check Y and Z you don't have it).

In general, you need a genius/expert to analyze these results right now.

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#78

Post by dekhn »

pm90 wrote: post #66
stream_fusion wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, I don't think 23&Me's test results have enough medical value to be used for evaluating health risks. Insurance companies would have another view.

That's probably the reason why the FDA wants them to get approval before making such evaluations.

The FDA wants them to get approval becaue what 23&Me was doing was illegal and then when the FDA informed them, 23&Me didn't respond (this is all clearly documented!). The FDA has a requirement to enforce the law.

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#79

Post by dekhn »

stream_fusion wrote: post #42
dekhn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not correct. The FDA made them stop doing something they were doing illegally. Their genetic test is a medical device and they didn't have federal approval. Further, when the FDA informed them they needed approval, they didn't respond. The FDA finally had to invoke the law. Also, I don't think 23&Me's test results have enough medical value to be used for evaluating health risks. Further, 23&me's database has s…

> Also, I don't think 23&Me's test results have enough medical value to be used for evaluating health risks. Insurance companies would have another view.

Do they? What evidence do you have of that? Insurance companies typically reimburse for actual genetic tests, and they are legally prevented by GINA from discriminating against you for the test results.

Re: 23andMe Wins a Second Life, Raises $115M

#80

Post by robbiep »

anon1mous wrote: post #48
robbiep wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very likely that someone finding this information would have been able to discover it by looking at their family tree. Serious genetic diseases do have a small de novo rate but by and large are already there just being passed down

Wrong. For one people used to die a lot younger, many genetic defects will only kill an older, weaker human. For two the environment is different, e.g. many more cancerogens in and around us. Just have a look at the cancer rates. A middle aged man in US today has a 70% chance of getting cancer during his lifetime.

Sorry mate, what?

The op said a friend discovered they had a genetic mutation that lead to an increased risk of cancer. There are several conditions that do this: multiple endocrine neoplasia (types 1 and 2), li fraumeni syndrome (a p53 mutation), familial adenomatous polyposis (apc mutation), hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer and a handful of others.

All of these present with strong family histories. In fact, patients with APC mutations often have cancer before their 30s. Yet have been successfully passing on this mutation for generations now.

If you do not have defective copies of the above (or a small subset of mutations of other regulatory and proto-oncogenes) then you have no greater chance of developing cancer than the next person, lifestyle and virus exposure factors not withstanding.

Now I really don't think you have any idea what you're talking about because your two points are at odds with each other: you first state that we are living longer, and defects 'will kill older, weaker humans'. Bullshit. Your next point, that cancer rates are higher now than at some indeterminate point in the past, is also bullshit and out of context: if we are living longer, then of course we are going to get cancer. But this has no bearing on our genetic susceptibility to cancer over a certain age. In fact, there are no known genetic mutations that predispose to cancer later in life; all the syndromes predispose to cancer early.

I can only suppose you are trolling very hard, and hence hiding behind 'anon1mous'

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