The Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) gene testing industry has generated a lot of press over the last five or six years. But the business plan has always seemed rather on the South Park side of logical:
- Collect DNA from humans
- ?????
- PROFIT!!!
The company that generated the initial wave of publicity, and remains by far the best known, is 23andMe. Many people thought at first that their business plan was purely consumer focused: individuals would pay to get their spit kits and have their genes analyzed and the company would make a buck on the procedure. But as early as 2007 there were suggestions that Google had an interest in gathering genetic data. And it soon became clear that the fine print reserved the company the right to sell (theoretically anonymized) customer data to researchers.
View the original article here: New Business Plans for the Direct-to-Consumer Gene Testing Industry?
