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23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

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Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#131

Post by haihaibye »

zyang wrote: post #110
bobthepanda wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I would also say that a partial reason why these would've dropped is that everyone who can do it has done it. You only need these kinds of results once because your DNA doesn't change. I knew people who were giving or had gotten these as gifts, but those are one-off purchases. And if you've heard of people doing it then you'll do it too but that's also a one-off. I don't think I'd personally benefit because…

I did it 6/7 years ago because the novelty, and enthusiastically recommended it to family and friends. Now I regret doing it considering how Google and Facebook has abused consumer data. I definitely would not submit my kids to the same fate.

They already have 1/2 of your kids DNA.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#132

Post by wahern »

dekhn wrote: post #97
wahern wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest chunk, $300 million, was a buy-in from GlaxoSmithKline, with which it purchased access to the database and research. Given the slowing pace of drug development, that was probably a very good "investment" by GSK. But maybe it was a bad one for 23andMe if it limits the scope of deals they can do with other pharmaceutical companies.

It remains unclear that 23&Me's data will truly be transformative in drug development (this has been a criticism of the human genome project since it finished and most predictions for human health still haven't panned out). There's a lot of narrative and noise there, but not a lot of useful activity (yes, I know 23&Me is touting one drug at this point).

On the last big 23andMe thread at least one researcher commented that their data has been immensely useful. And I'm fairly certain I've read a few similar comments on HN before then.

A researcher friend of mine made fun of me for signing up to 23andMe when they first offered their test. SNPs, he told me, didn't tell you much of substance. To which I replied, haven't the last 20 years (almost 30, now) of genetic research been built almost entirely on SNP-based studies? He didn't have a comeback for that--he was in the middle of his Ph.D at the time. A few years later he signed up for 23andMe =)

It's true: we're so incredibly far from the type of personalized medicine that genetic researchers promised. I'm not sure what "transformative" would look like, but I don't think 23andMe's valuation exceeds its potential, if only because of the number of 0's in medical expenditures, globally but especially in the U.S.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#133

Post by 0xCMP »

zyang wrote: post #110
bobthepanda wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I would also say that a partial reason why these would've dropped is that everyone who can do it has done it. You only need these kinds of results once because your DNA doesn't change. I knew people who were giving or had gotten these as gifts, but those are one-off purchases. And if you've heard of people doing it then you'll do it too but that's also a one-off. I don't think I'd personally benefit because…

I did it 6/7 years ago because the novelty, and enthusiastically recommended it to family and friends. Now I regret doing it considering how Google and Facebook has abused consumer data. I definitely would not submit my kids to the same fate.

IIRC you can request the data to be deleted. You have no way of knowing if it's been done correctly, but at least it's something you could do to prevent your kid's DNA from effectively being there.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#134

Post by skissane »

dmix wrote: post #35

Maybe the industry as a whole should stop handing stuff over to law enforcement and governments. I was going to buy it for 2 different people for christmas but both declined over privacy concerns as they read in the news they are being used in sweeping investigations. Given the number of wrongful accusations that litter history and the general trend away from any regard for privacy among security agencies this is a v…

> Maybe the industry as a whole should stop handing stuff over to law enforcement and governments.

They can try saying "No", then the government will just get a court order to force them to do it. They don't really have a choice in the end – the only choice they have is whether they make it easy for the government ("you want our data? here have it!") or slightly harder ("I'll need to see a warrant first..." "No problem, we are going to the magistrate right now to get one...")

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#135

Post by endorphone »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #112
endorphone wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This keeps coming up by people who are seemingly confusing 23andme with GedMatch. They are very different platforms, and even the latter has greatly changed their law enforcement policies. 23andme requires a warrant. They publish a transparency report and since 2015 they've gotten a grand total of 7. Having said that, if my DNA catches a distant relative who commits severe crimes, that hardly discourages me. As an as…

> This keeps coming up by people who are seemingly confusing 23andme with GedMatch. They are very different platforms, and even the latter has greatly changed their law enforcement policies. This confusion matters if the average customer is making decisions based on that info. It doesn't matter (yet?) that they require a warrant and are transparent. All that matters is that enough people believe 23andme will share pe…

I would expect it to matter on HN. Facts matter. Increasingly people are just saying entirely wrong, easily disproven things and because it sounds right to whatever the bias of the crowd is, it's accepted.

However I doubt that angle has any relevance to their sales decline, beyond the most fringe element. As others have rightly said, the majority of people who have an interest in the information that 23andme offers have already done it or a competitor, having probably picked it up over one of the multiple Prime Days, etc. They do have revisions of their chip and improved information, but thus far they haven't marketed that for repurchases.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#136

Post by [deleted] »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #88
jsgo wrote: post #79

> Wojcicki has theories Think the obvious one is that the results are shared and whether someone is a criminal or not (or will be one in the future), people are not particularly comfortable with sharing to parties they didn't initially trust it to for the purposes they trusted it for. Anecdotally, I bought a 23andme kit (just the genealogy one) but never submitted it because the labeling was to send it to the lab in…

When 23andme first started they were offering that a sample and your data could be destroyed whenever you liked. Then they got bought and their erasure document is a disgrace, their default position is they can't delete your genetic data and they don't say a thing about the sample at all. Those were not the terms under which it was collected. There is a reason their business is failing and its because of this enormou…

[deleted]

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#138

Post by haihaibye »

marcell wrote: post #95

They sold 10M kits, and they primarily market in the US. DNA never changes, so you have a lifetime max of 1 purchase of 23andMe per lifetime. Their competitors have likely sold 15-30M as well, so maybe 30-40M of these kits have been sold. That's 10% of US market. What's the max conceivable penetration here? 20%?

Commercial DNA testing companies use microarrays, which are cheap but only see common variation.

DNA sequencing is more expensive but can find all variation, including the very rare ones (eg only in your family)

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#139

Post by dougmwne »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #109
marcell wrote: post #95

They sold 10M kits, and they primarily market in the US. DNA never changes, so you have a lifetime max of 1 purchase of 23andMe per lifetime. Their competitors have likely sold 15-30M as well, so maybe 30-40M of these kits have been sold. That's 10% of US market. What's the max conceivable penetration here? 20%?

It occurs to me that they could have followed the software trend where everything is a subscription service. As more is learned from the genome, they can deliver more value to the customers over time.

Yeah, it seems like a major mistake to sell this as a one-time purchase. Market it as "genetic monitoring" Charge a monthly or yearly fee to keep getting new genetic insights as research discovers the function of more mutations. Offer upsell re-tests with more complete or accurate sequencing.

I think they must have been banking on the data-set itself being highly valuable and made the tests cheap, then ran out of customers on both ends of the equation.

Re: 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline

#140

Post by rrdharan »

bobthepanda wrote: post #108
throwaway1777 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New people are being born all the time. There are many industries based around one time purchases. Think appendix removal or weddings (that one may be more than once for some people)

Gifting someone a thing that could be used as a paternity test at a baby shower would be more than a little rude. And presumably if both parents have already done it why would you need to test the baby?

Mutation is a thing.
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