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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

#81

Post by Karunamon »

ryanisnan wrote: post #47
breck wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also done 23andme and am open about my data. I can think of about 3 negative outcomes (maybe insurance problems that could occur without regulation; family privacy issues if someone wanted to track you or a family member down; annoying advertising), and about 1,000 positive outcomes (contributing data to help cure cancer, predict disease susceptibility, drug response, improve general health and wellness, et cete…

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…

Insurance discrimination is explicitly prohibited by law, and your genetic makeup is about the least private and controllable thing about you since you leave bits of it everywhere you go whether you want to or not.

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

#82

Post by bkanber »

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 don't know yet. But, for instance, the Cambridge Analytica data is nearly a decade old, and we didn't know back then that it could be used to (potentially) hijack a Presidential election. It's not so much a matter of what a hacker could do with this data today, but rather in 10 or 20 years.

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

#83

Post by Retric »

throwawaymath wrote: post #54
Retric wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of other risks. Once you get into the X million+ sample ranges false positives for paternity tests or criminal cases become likely. 10 million tests vs 10 million person database means 1 in 10 trillion false positives happen 10 times.

Why couldn't you run those tests several times?

These are not false positives, because you ran the test wrong.

Suppose a male with red hair, green eyes, and AB+ blood actually has those traits they are just not enough to unlikely identify someone. Adding more genetic traits on it's own is not enough for example you have identical twin or even triplet separated at birth. The core issue is DNA marks are not independent though people often assume they are.

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

#84

Post by Krasnol »

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.

This data is a wet dream for a racist Government.

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

#85

Post by Shank »

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 of disease probabilities and some fairly useless-to-me traits (like, for instance, a probabilistic view of my hair color). Even if you jump into the fray with something like Promethease or look at data on SNPedia, each SNP only has a handful of studies and there's little to no research on hundreds of thousands of SNPs. Only a few sets have been analyzed for specific purposes like Alzheimer's and rare diseases, and those are indeed rare.

Science doesn't advance like the technology industry. It takes slow, methodical research to point to anything super conclusive. If we wanted a dystopia where job aptitude was determined by DNA, for example, we would need hundreds of studies and conclusive evidence that some genetic data indicates a very good match and not just a hunch. That research has to come from somewhere, continually be reproduced, and undergo the scientific process. That's all stuff that has to be paid for, which is something not a lot of people are willing to do.

> 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 ?

It's more of a curiosity thing. I get a more complete view of myself, and we potentially help advance research in medicine and diseases. It's symbiotic.

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

#86

Post by maxerickson »

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…

Maintaining the privacy of your own personal data is a really fragile model for resisting a dystopian society.

I mean, it doesn't take very long before it's worth collecting a sample without your permission.

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

#87

Post by antpls »

jklehm wrote: post #76
breck wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe there are services that will do whole genome seq for you for under $10k(and I assume won’t keep your data). You could then use Promethease for analysis. I’m unaware of any way you could do self-DNA testing at home unless you wanted to spend $100k+ on equipment, reagents, etc. The Nanopore might be relevant but I haven’t looked into it much.

$1000 for the Minion and 2 flow cells. $900 per flow cell after that[0]. For 30x coverage (standard) takes about 15 flow cells[1]. So looking at $12700 to DIY. [0] https://store.nanoporetech.com/flowcells.html [1] https://nanoporetech.com/about-us/news/human-genome-minion

I asked myself the same question some weeks ago, and I did a bit of basic research. I didn't keep the sources, but I found there are 2 types of sequencing : "draft" and "full". From what I found, prices are quickly dropping over the past years, and the "draft" sequencing is becoming more complete.

Most likely, 23andMe does a "draft" sequencing.

Also I also read the value of $1000 for a draft sequencing.

I wonder, given there are about 3 millions deaths each year in USA, why isn't there some kind of government sponsored research to collect death people's genomes?

Every year, there would be 3 millions more genomes in database. People already dead don't need to have data protection or insurances risk, and there would be a full health historic and cause of death available for each genomes.

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

#88

Post by refurb »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #80
refurb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's already being done. Unless you have certain genetic markers in your tumor, insurance will deny certain therapies since they are unlikely to work. Why is that bad?

The insurance carrier has a conflict of interest. Over in Europe they have public bodies issuing treatment guidelines, but that would be a political impossibility in the US.

How is it any different in Europe? They make the exact same decisions.

US insurance companies use treatment guidelines issued by organizations like NCCN (oncology). If they stray too far, they get dinged for not meeting "medical necessity" requirements.

If anything, you're more likely to get an experimental cancer drug in the US than Europe since US insurance companies don't like bad press.

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

#89

Post by antpls »

I wonder, given there are about 3 millions deaths each year in USA, why isn't there some kind of government sponsored research to collect death people's genomes?

Every year, there would be 3 millions more genomes in database. People already dead don't need to have data protection or insurances risk, and there would be a full health historic and cause of death available for each genomes.

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

#90

Post by sk5t »

nradov wrote: post #38
mcculley wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand these concerns. I have published my data from 23andMe ( https://enki.org/2017/10/17/publishing-my-genome/ ) ( https://github.com/mcculley/genes-genes ). Can you share what you think the bad outcomes would be? What am I missing? Edit: As people bring up the insurance risk, yes I did consider that and mention it in my post. I am personally not concerned about it and think the advantages outweigh the…

In the USA the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment. No one in politically powerful positions has seriously advocated for repealing the law. The insurance companies don't even dislike it because it creates a level playing field; since the market is competitive, even if they were allowed…

This is true for health insurance; not so for life insurance.
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