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

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

#201

Post by a_136_chiffa »

Shank wrote: post #85
ironjunkie wrote: post #67

I don't want to spread FUD but why would ANYONE in their right mind give their DNA to a company in Silicon Valley that is explicitely using Google as a model for Data privacy ? (The founder of 23AndMe is the ex-wife of Google founder). Even worse, people are actually PAYING quite a lot to get the privilege of having that company playing with your most private data. This field needs to be heavily regulated. In 20 year…

> In 20 years we will be able to extract all type of crazy information from DNA and it might be our biggest liability if it is shared across private companies. This will truly be the dystopian future, in which every business will make a decision based on your public DNA profile. I really doubt this. I've been genotyped by 23andMe and the most interesting information I've seen from their health reports are a handful o…

> I really doubt this. I've been genotyped by 23andMe and the most interesting information I've seen from their health reports are a handful of disease probabilities and some fairly useless-to-me traits (like, for instance, a probabilistic view of my hair color).

This is about to change. The academic research going on is immense and GWAS studies coming in the 10 years will be characterizing everything - from your chance to develop cancer, to car crash or dropping out of school.

You need to be aware of what analyses of your data is being shown to you compared to what are possible and can be run in the background. It's a little bit like the Facebook telling things about you in ~2011 (your best friend is X) and then Cambridge Analytica pouring on it five years later to serve you ads that would best affect your voting pattern.

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

#202

Post by a_136_chiffa »

kalleboo wrote: post #169
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will if you cant get insurance / welfare / a job / a loan because your DNA suggests that you are statistically a potential liability

Sure but what if I don't live in the corporatist dystopia that is the USA?

Whether you like it or not, US tends to lead the world. Tools developed here tend to implanted elsewhere, even if they get regulated after about a decade.

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

#203

Post by mcculley »

Retric wrote: post #193
mcculley wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society will have to adapt to a better understanding that this is true. Keeping one’s DNA secret is not going to be a useful defense against ignorance of how DNA works.

Worked for the last 10,000+ years and still works today. Sure, at some point in the future it might get fixed or always fail, but until then you need to deal with today not some mythical perfect future.

The last 10,000+ years has not been static from my perspective. Blood testing came along. Limited DNA testing came along after that. Perfect DNA testing will be here soon. The technology won't care how you feel about it being used. I'm not imagining a mythical perfect future. I'm imagining a very real future that we can't avoid and need to deal with more pragmatically.

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

#204

Post by a_136_chiffa »

chrisbaglieri wrote: post #94
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.

I am always fascinated by these concerns. The data available on you today (financial history, social data, search histories) is more complete, concrete and actionable than one's genomics data. I say this as someone who works in this area.

You can change your credit score, social circles or what you search. Your genome is frozen in time and is passed down to your children.

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

#205

Post by ralston »

guiambros wrote: post #160
cloverich wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have some examples? I'm not super well informed but 300M seems like a pretty small investment, given a single drug could cost >500M to produce and yield 10B+ in _yearly_ revenue. I'm not claiming one's genetic data is perfectly safe with any company, but that a for profit drug company would use it primarily for drug research seems reasonably sound. In some aspects, I'd expect they'd even have a vested interest…

Couldn't agree more. As someone who has his genetic profile with 23andme (as well as my kids, wife, parents, etc), I'm actually looking forward to someone like GSK to come in and use my genetic data to accelerate the discovery of new drugs. It's shocking that so much genetic data is available, and we're barely scratching the surface, and using for fancy graphs and genealogy trees. We could be finding the cure for rea…

> As someone who has his genetic profile with 23andme (as well as my kids, wife, parents, etc)

Well there it is. You couldn't have an objective discussion about this, even if you wanted to. You (and your family) have already gone through the process. So of course you're extremely hopeful/optimistic that this works out with no problems ;)

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

#206

Post by kalleboo »

a_136_chiffa wrote: post #202
kalleboo wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but what if I don't live in the corporatist dystopia that is the USA?

Whether you like it or not, US tends to lead the world. Tools developed here tend to implanted elsewhere, even if they get regulated after about a decade.

Generally sure, but in other ways the US always lags the world - elsewhere you don't have to worry about being denied insurance, welfare systems are far more comprehensive, and privacy laws tend to actually get implemented (like the much-maligned GDPR)

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

#207

Post by teekno »

ironjunkie wrote: post #136
teekno wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want to spread FUD but why would ANYONE in their right mind give their DNA to a company in Silicon Valley that is explicitely using Google as a model for Data privacy ? My father has Parkinson's and provided his DNA to 23AndMe using one of their free kits [1]. Companies like this represent a chance of finding a cure. There are certainly concerns with companies accumulating large amounts of genetic data, but…

There are huge benefits, I agree with you. My concern is that 23AndMe is a for-profit company advertising the huge benefits in order to push a for-profit agenda. What I would like to see is some tighter regulations around all of this: No sharing of specific data, complete anonymization of all the data sets would be a good start

I'm under the impression that you need to opt-in to any research studies that would use your genetic info (though I'm not 100% sure).

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

#208

Post by fapjacks »

mfkp wrote: post #180
fapjacks wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've purchased a handful of Dante Labs 30x WGS kits on Amazon over the last couple of days. You didn't hear it from me, but the kits are still on sale on Amazon for $349... ... And an additional secret $100 discount during checkout. This is $250 WGS at 30x coverage. It should be front-page news.

Link? I'm seeing $499 in checkout on Amazon.

It looks like this listing ended about the same time that I posted about it, or at least in the time between my posting about it and six hours ago. Now there are only $499 kits by third-party sellers. But when there was still FBA inventory (fulfilled by Amazon), it was $349 plus the secret $100 "promotion" discount during checkout.

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

#209

Post by fapjacks »

tbrock wrote: post #178
fapjacks wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've purchased a handful of Dante Labs 30x WGS kits on Amazon over the last couple of days. You didn't hear it from me, but the kits are still on sale on Amazon for $349... ... And an additional secret $100 discount during checkout. This is $250 WGS at 30x coverage. It should be front-page news.

Can you provide a link or more info? I’m not seeing it. It seems to be at $499.

It looks like this listing ended about the same time that I posted about it, or at least in the time between my posting about it and six hours ago. Now there are only $499 kits by third-party sellers. But when there was still FBA inventory (fulfilled by Amazon), it was $349 plus the secret $100 "promotion" discount during checkout.

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

#210

Post by aaavl2821 »

krageon wrote: post #197
aaavl2821 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

You make a lot of bold claims in this post and provide no evidence. I think in this case the claims are far enough out there that some evidence is warranted. For example: "They already have access to sensitive health information for many many people and have had access to this data for decades". In what country is this? Everywhere? You would be wrong about that, unless you mean a specific group of people that gave th…

I come from a biotech background, and I felt that a lot of the claims others were making about how it was basically guaranteed that GSK would start selling genetic data to insurers were very bold claims with no evidence. I get that in tech data protection and privacy culture and regulations are very different than in healthcare, and there are legitimate concerns especially with 23andme having healthcare data (given how fast and loose they play by the rules governing healthcare), but the tone of some of the comments seemed so confident in their opinions without providing much evidence. I guess each side believes the burden of proof lies with the other

In the spirit of not wanting to seem that way myself:

* here is a link to all of the clinical studies currently being conducted by glaxosmithkline: [0]. There are 4,662 studies currently listed. This is across dozens of countries. Click around and look at the data they are collecting (look at the endpoints, inclusion / exclusion criteria, etc). This is all clinical study data, so patients have to volunteer for this, but you also have to opt in to sharing your data for 23andme. I also know of a few companies that collected lab data from patients and sold them to pharma companies so they could target them with ads; patients had to opt in to this and there were privacy protections; I'd imagine there are plenty of other examples like this.

Also, thousands of other companies have access to massive amounts of health data, genetic and otherwise: EMR companies, insurance companies, hospitals, etc. Many of these groups share information with each other all the time, including genetic information. How else could a lab share with a hospital a patients sequence data? Why is this GSK / 23andme deal particularly concerning? Is it because 23andme or GSK are viewed as bad actors?

* here is a list of FDA approved nucleic acid based tests: [1]. More and more drugs are being approved to treat patients with specific genotypes, see slide 316 [2]

[0] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=glaxo&cntr...

[1] https://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedu...

[2] https://iabsverige.se/wp-content/uploads/InternetTrends2017R...

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