23andMe

23andMe is a privately held personal genomics and biotechnology company based in Mountain View, California. The company is named for the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a normal human cell.[1] Its saliva-based direct-to-consumer personal genome test was named Invention of the Year by Time magazine in 2008.[2]

In 2013 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered 23andMe to discontinue marketing its personal genome service (PGS) as the company had not obtained the legally required regulatory approval resulting in concerns about the potential consequences of customers receiving inaccurate health results.[3] The company continued to sell a personal genome test without health-related results in the United States until October 21, 2015, when it announced that it would be including a revised health component with FDA approval.[4][5] 23andMe has been selling a product with both ancestry and health-related components in Canada since October 2014,[6][7][8] and in the United Kingdom since December 2014.

Company history

The company was founded by Linda Avey, Paul Cusenza and Anne Wojcicki in 2006 to provide genetic testing and interpretation to individual consumers.[10][11] In 2007, Google invested $3,900,000 in the company, along with Genentech, New Enterprise Associates, and Mohr Davidow Ventures.[12]

Cusenza left the company in 2007 and was appointed CEO of Nodal Exchange in 2008.[13] Avey left the company in 2009 and co-founded Curious, Inc. in 2011.[14]

In 2012, 23andMe raised $50 million in a Series D venture round, almost doubling its existing capital of $52.6 million.[15][16][17] In 2015, 23andMe raised $115 million in a Series E offering, increasing its total capital to $241 million.[5][18][19]

The company had not turned a profit by October 2015.
Anne Wojcicki

Anne E. Wojcicki (/woʊˈdʒɪtski/ woh-JIT-skee; born July 28, 1973) is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder and chief executive officer of the personal genomics company 23andMe. She was formerly married to Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin.

Early life

Wojcicki, the youngest of three daughters, was born in San Mateo County, California. Her parents are Esther Wojcicki (née Hochman), an educator, and Stanley Wojcicki, a physics professor emeritus at Stanford University. Her mother is Jewish and her father is a Polish American. Her sisters are Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube and a former executive at Google[2] and Janet Wojcicki, anthropologist and epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco.[3]

Wojcicki grew up on the Stanford campus. When she was two, she learned how to figure skate, but later quit and started playing ice hockey.[4] She attended Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, and was an editor for The Oracle, the school newspaper, and won a scholarship for her sports stories.[3][5] She attended Yale University, where she was a competitive ice skater and played on the varsity women’s ice hockey team.[6][7] She graduated with a B.S. in biology in 1996.[8] She did molecular biology research at the National Institutes of Health and the University of California, San Diego.