23andMe, the corporate whose mail-in self-testing kits turned synonymous with DNA testing, is submitting for chapter amid slowing gross sales 4 years after it went public. Anne Wojcicki, who co-founded 23andMe in 2006, is stepping down as CEO as the corporate tries to discover a purchaser.
In January, 23andMe mentioned it was exploring choices for a sale amid slowing demand for its product and the fallout of a serious knowledge breach in 2023. In 2024, the corporate agreed to a monetary settlement for the breach, which affected 6.9 million customers. The firm had additionally introduced layoffs of about 40% of its workforce in late 2024. Recently, the corporate’s inventory dipped under a greenback, placing it at risk of being delisted from the NASDAQ.
In a observe to prospects, the corporate mentioned nothing is presently altering about the way in which it shops, manages or protects buyer knowledge and that the corporate remains to be open for enterprise and promoting DNA kits. “Through this course of, we’ll search to discover a companion who shares our dedication to buyer knowledge privateness and permits our mission of serving to individuals entry, perceive and profit from the human genome to reside on,” the corporate mentioned in its put up.
At its peak, 23andMe turned the best-known identify within the rising space of DNA self-testing, with customers paying $99 for kits that gave them insights into their genetic make-up, potential kinfolk and ancestry. But the corporate’s momentum slowed down in recent times after its $3.5 billion public providing in 2021.
People who’ve used 23andMe and are involved about what may occur to their knowledge in a sale have choices: They can obtain their data then delete their account, in addition to ask the corporate to discard their DNA materials along with deleting the information. Doing so will maintain DNA data from being utilized in future analysis, however it could possibly’t be faraway from analysis that has already been executed.