A few months after it indicated it would move into drug development, 23andMe has raised $79 million, according to a Form D filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
23andMe is using its genomic database to help identify new therapeutic targets. It recently hired Genentech veterans Robert Gentleman and Richard Scheller, who led drug discovery there. Scheller joined 23andMe in March as CSO and head of therapeutics. Gentleman joined the next month as vice president of computational biology.
In an interview with BIOIT World, when asked about the kind of genomic drug discovery opportunities 23andMe is considering, Gentleman identified colon cancer as one interesting area:
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
“Look, for example, at colon cancer, there have been a number of GWAS studies that have been done to identify variants associated with whether or not you get colon cancer, but… colon cancer isn’t one disease. Colon cancer is at least three and maybe ten diseases. If you can identify those subgroups and… do GWAS on those versus a reasonable control group, you’d find a different set of variants. And that’s true for all diseases.”
He also said: “We’re going to have an awful lot of fun, and I think we’re going to discover some very interesting drugs.”
It recently began a collaboration with Pfizer for a study on Lupus , a condition that affects 1.5 million people. The study, which also involves the Lupus Research Institute, seeks to better understand the genetics of lupus.
Among the company’s investors are Google Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, The Roche Venture Fund and MPM Capital.
