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GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact

fiercebiotech.com

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Re: GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact

#141

Post by aaavl2821 »

reaperducer wrote: post #124
aaavl2821 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using genetic data to find new drugs strikes me as a very good use of this data. Medical data is essential to the process of finding new drugs and treating patients and is highly regulated. I think you're right to be concerned about sharing of genetic data, but conflating facebook / google data sharing practices with medical data sharing is not appropriate If the concern is that 23and me may bring the google / FB app…

Using genetic data to find new drugs strikes me as a very good use of this data. Selling it to anyone who pays the price seems like a bad idea. Which is inevitably what will happen here the next time the company needs to "maximize shareholder value" by "utilizing its assets to their full revenue potential." Next thing you know, I end up paying higher insurance rates because some distant relative I don't know is predi…

Is the concern that GSK will resell this, or that 23andme will?

I wouldn't be as worried about GSK reselling data to insurance companies. They already have access to sensitive health information for many many people and have had access to this data for decades. You literally cannot get a drug approved without collecting sensitive medical info on patients, because you can't tell if the drug works without collecting this data. Many drugs now require some genetic testing to be done to justify a prescription

There are many laws protecting against this type of data reselling and it also isn't really in a pharma companies business interest to help insurers. Healthcare companies tend to be very protective of and territorial with their data -- especially with enemies -- and pharma and payers aren't generally on the same side

I don't understand why there's an uproar over this but at the same time people are pushing for more medical data sharing among providers / payers etc for "population health". At the very least the absolutely certainty some people are expressing about this data being used maliciously seems unfounded. There is a massive massive difference between how data is handled in tech vs healthcare

Re: GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact

#142

Post by mattnewton »

mcculley wrote: post #112
mattnewton wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the taxpayer should be capturing all the value the insurance companies provide. If they are only insuring the wealthy and healthy and the government pays for the rest, that’s a rather raw deal for the taxpayer. Also I hope you never have my DNA. I can’t think of a reason why you should, and for one possible exercise on why you shouldn’t, please watch Gattaca.

I actually think that basic health care should be covered by taxpayers and we should not have private insurance companies profiting in that space. As for your DNA: Do you take the precautions of the protagonist in Gattaca? How do you avoid leaving DNA samples in public places? How long before drones/bots/Roombas are hoovering this up at the behest of some VC?

It sounds like we are in violent agreement then: if insurance companies are allowed to exist the way they do today, they can’t have access to all the information. I like your solution to the dilemma of just not having private insurance companies :D

Re DNA precautions: We just need to make hovering up DNA illegal, or selling insurance, or selling anything based on the genetic information gathered from people; make it all illegal, so I don’t have to worry about it in the same way I don’t have to worry about insurance companies breaking into my house to spy on me.

Re: GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact

#143

Post by jonknee »

endorphone wrote: post #113
jonknee wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not the juiciest target, but I could see intelligence agencies wanting it. Combine it with the OPM hack of all security clearances and you could in theory use it to find family members of spies, people in high positions who have secret children, etc etc. Imagine if you had Trump's DNA and could then search a massive database to find out if he has any kids we don't know about...

If intelligence agencies wanted DNA it seems remarkably easy for them to collect. We leave our DNA everywhere.

Sure, but it would be a massive amount of work to go collect millions of samples and sequence them. Like how researchers are using the data to solve crimes, you need a large set of data to get good results out of. In my scenario you would collect the DNA of your target (say, Trump) and then use the 23andMe data to try and dig up dirt on relatives (say, his illegitimate children).

Re: GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact

#144

Post by ethbro »

abcc8 wrote: post #115
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some digging by a lay-idiot >> The Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC) has built one of the world’s most comprehensive genetics databases, pairing the sequenced exomes and de-identified electronic health records of more than 300,000 people so far. https://www.regeneron.com/genetics-center https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/23andMe - users 5 million My understanding is that you are saying 23andme's 5 million records are less…

23andme has consent to contact a majority of the 5 million who have used their service. It is likely that those who run the 300 thousand database cannot legally contact those who have submitted samples or have no mechanism whereby that number of people are contacted and reconsented. This is just a hypothesis, we would need to read the consent forms to verify.

Furthermore, this solves one of the key problems 23andMe has had with the FDA over notifying users.

Specifically, that the FDA prohibited them from proactivitely notifying users about potentially dangerous mutations. Looks like they've gotten approval for a few breast cancer risk markers now, but that's well short of what they could do.

If you're notifying users about a drug discovery program... the FDA can't gripe.

Re: GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact

#145

Post by kondro »

kough wrote: post #22
throwaway0255 wrote: post #18

I find it seriously scary how 23andMe markets itself. Externally, they're a family company helping you understand your family history and equipping you to anticipate health problems so you can prepare for them. Internally, in presentations to venture capitalists and in job interviews with engineers like me, the picture is quite different. They're building a genetic database and plotting world domination from a thousa…

Would you elaborate on these nebulous plans for world domination?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca

Re: GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact

#146

Post by mrfusion »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #3

Make no mistake about what is happening here. GSK is buying access to all of the genetic data that 23andMe has. This is why I am wary to use any 23andMe type of service. "The partners plan to use 23andMe’s data to jointly discover drug targets." They will claim all kinds of protections of course, but it is only a matter of time until genetic data starts being resold.

Is the data really that useful? It’s just a bunch of snps. And you don’t know about what diseases the customers have (besides genetic diseases)

Re: GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact

#147

Post by mcculley »

mattnewton wrote: post #142
mcculley wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think that basic health care should be covered by taxpayers and we should not have private insurance companies profiting in that space. As for your DNA: Do you take the precautions of the protagonist in Gattaca? How do you avoid leaving DNA samples in public places? How long before drones/bots/Roombas are hoovering this up at the behest of some VC?

It sounds like we are in violent agreement then: if insurance companies are allowed to exist the way they do today, they can’t have access to all the information. I like your solution to the dilemma of just not having private insurance companies :D Re DNA precautions: We just need to make hovering up DNA illegal, or selling insurance, or selling anything based on the genetic information gathered from people; make it…

I don't see how making collection of DNA data illegal could be enforced. It seems inevitable to me that such data will be widely available.

Re: GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact

#148

Post by whatshisface »

mcculley wrote: post #112
mattnewton wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the taxpayer should be capturing all the value the insurance companies provide. If they are only insuring the wealthy and healthy and the government pays for the rest, that’s a rather raw deal for the taxpayer. Also I hope you never have my DNA. I can’t think of a reason why you should, and for one possible exercise on why you shouldn’t, please watch Gattaca.

I actually think that basic health care should be covered by taxpayers and we should not have private insurance companies profiting in that space. As for your DNA: Do you take the precautions of the protagonist in Gattaca? How do you avoid leaving DNA samples in public places? How long before drones/bots/Roombas are hoovering this up at the behest of some VC?

>I actually think that basic health care should be covered by taxpayers and we should not have private insurance companies profiting in that space.

What happens when someone gets their genetic information released in a country with public healthcare, and then moves to a country with private healthcare?

Re: GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact

#149

Post by mLuby »

searine wrote: post #55
bmmayer1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> genetic data starts being resold Or hacked.

Honest question. What is a hacker going to do with my genetic data? What threat does having my medical predispositions publicly available have? Is the hacker going to call me up and suggest I start taking high blood pressure medication?

We've established the genetic data are valuable in the aggregate.

Also since we're talking criminals, blackmail: eg tell your employer about your predisposition to violent mental illness or reveal your kids aren't actually your spouse's.

Re: GlaxoSmithKline makes $300M investment in 23andMe, forms 50-50 R&D pact

#150

Post by whatshisface »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #91
ryanisnan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on, don't straw man the actual issues. Nobody is worried about GSK getting rich, but are worried about actual issues like insurance discrimination, loss of privacy, loss of control, etc. I think few people would argue against the benefits of genetic testing, but just because it's a great thing doesn't mean that being complacent around adjacent shady business transactions is the right approach. You can be for…

If I cared about privacy I wouldn’t have had 23andme and the Personal Genome Project do my genotyping. While it may affect me negatively in the future, the net positive (in aggregate with all participants) will exceed that negative value. I’m dead in the long run regardless, and would rather find every way I can be impactful with the time I have left, even in these small ways.

Have you considered the impact on your relatives and descendants? They may care more about their privacy than you care about yours, and when you get sequenced they don't have a choice.
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