While best known for selling direct-to-consumer DNA tests used for genealogical research, 23andMe is teaming up with a drugmaker to tap into its vast data pool for drug development.
British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and the genetic testing firm said Wednesday that they had entered a four-year partnership to focus on research and development of medicines. The two hope to find new drug targets that drive disease progression and develop new therapies based on them.
Customers of 23andMe – who number more than 5 million – will be able to choose whether to participate in research and contribute their information to a new database, which the companies said is the world’s largest genetic and phenotypic resource. The deal also includes a $300 million equity investment in 23andMe by GSK. The companies will each provide half of the funding for activities conducted under the partnership, with some options to reduce funding share and also to extend the deal from four to five years.
It’s not Mountain View, California-based 23andMe’s first time at the healthcare rodeo. In March, the company became the first to win Food and Drug Administration approval for a genetic test for cancer risk that can be sold directly to consumers without a prescription. The test is designed to identify variants of BRCA1 and BRCA2, which occur most frequently in people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and, when present in women, confer a chance of breast cancer arising by age 70 ranging from 45 to 85 percent. They are also associated with breast and prostate cancer risk in men and ovarian cancer risk in women. AstraZeneca’s drug Lynparza (olaparib) is a drug used to treat BRCA-mutant ovarian and breast cancer.
And in December 2017, the company started a 100,000-person study of weight loss and its connection to genetics. Just four years previously, the FDA had issued 23andMe a warning letter saying that it was marketing its Saliva Collection Kit and Personal Genome Service without approval from the agency.
Photo: manop1984, Getty Images
