new york
CNN
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23Andme, the standard representative for At-Home Health Movement, announced that he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 23 to promote the sale, urging many of his 15 million customers to wonder.
Privacy advocates and two state attorney generals are urging Americans to delete data about the service, even if 23andme said that Bankr Uptcy would not change the way user data is processed.
It is unclear what will be next for 23AndMe, but experts say there is a great incentive for companies and researchers to obtain genetic data from the company as well.
Genetics reveals much about people, from predisposing their health to food preferences, and provides a rare glimpse into details about people and their families for future generations. Despite the potential privacy issues, genetic data offers great potential for everything from medical research to advertising.
“Genetic data is persistent and unique,” says Katie Hasson, associate director at the Center for Genetics and Society. “It was able to reveal information about people that have not existed for years now.”
23Andme states on its website that buyers must comply with laws regarding the processing of customer data. The company plans to continue selling the kits and offer subscriptions.
Gideon Nave, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, told CNN that companies looking to personalize their products and advertisements find such data very useful.
For example, genetics can be linked to a particular taste preference of a food. Milan, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh and Human Technopol, found that hundreds of genetic variants are linked to specific food preferences.
Nave co-authored a paper on the potential use of genetic data in marketing, but said that genetic data can convey more than what you find in your grocery cart, as the items you purchase may be for someone else.
“In some cases, genetic data is more beneficial than people say they eat,” he said.
The most obvious use of genetic data is to discover predispositions to one’s health. 23AndMe offers a subscription that shows whether it is linked to a possible specific disease, such as type 2 diabetes or celiac disease. So, this type of data could also help with healthcare research and personalized medicine development, Nave said.
According to Vasant Dhar, professor of business and data science at Stern School of Business at New York University, there is also a promise to combine genetic information with clinical data to make a more accurate diagnosis. That’s why he believes that 23andme bidders are interested in using data for health and medical research.
“Doctors are guessing. They follow the rules. They are doing tests and trying to understand what’s wrong with you,” Dahl said. “But as you know, many illnesses have very similar symptoms.”
It also raises the question of whether genetic data can be used elsewhere in the healthcare industry. Non-discrimination of genetic information laws prevent genetic information from being used to cover health insurance or to discriminate employment.
However, Hasson says there are not many rules or restrictions to prevent genetic discrimination in other scenarios, such as disability insurance. The use of online genetic databases by law enforcement also raises concerns about individuals’ rights of privacy.
23andMe is not the first time a genetic testing company has sold itself in recent years. Private equity firm Blackstone acquired Ancestry.com in 2020.
However, genetic data has no expiration date, so businesses are suitable for the future, even if they are not currently in use. If genetic data is used in advertising, concerns can be used to target consumers based on specific health characteristics (presumably those they are not aware of).
“One of the dark side of this space is genetics, and people know a lot of hell about you,” Dahl said. “And yeah, they could exploit it.”
