23andMe sold the rights to a drug it developed from its genetic database | Hacker News Reader

23andMe sold the rights to a drug it developed from its genetic database

theverge.com

22 pointssciencewolf9 comments

I think this is great, this is how I would hope they would use this information. They internally create a drug, based on information - then sell the drug to someone who actually knows how too distribute it.

Where these companies are scary, is if they sell personally identifiable information to insurers, or someone who can use the info to actually create rates based on your dna.

Or the other scary way in taking them, is in theory at some point an insurance company can ask if you have ever taken a dna test, and if yes, they could ask you to tell them about it, and then you can't lie.

pretty sure the above is currently illegal, but who knows in the future.

23andMe hasn’t yet, created the drug. They’ve a potential candidate that they sold to a Spanish pharmaceutical company. The Spanish company would have to perform clinical trials before distribution.

In the US, health insurance can't use genetic information (GINA law). It is unlikely to change, as the uproar would be significant.

Being in the industry of identifying target variants from cohorts for pharma - I doubt 23andMe has a chemistry research organization dedicated to independently developing their own drugs.

Does the media have to clutch pearls every time 23 and me does something?

1. No, the FUD that insurance companies are going to discriminate against you is not going to happen. (At least in the USA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrim...

2. Many of us, myself included, submitted data to them so they could hopefully make drugs. And I hope they can sell them at a profit.

Look back when I had family working with Eli Lilly we would take soil samples on vacation in various remote areas to send back to their research lab. This was pretty common as they were looking for new and unique antibiotics. You know what happens to a drug when no one can make a profit on it? No one makes it.

I hope that we come up with some novel an unique drugs that will help people around the world. I don't care for any form of payment or compensation, and I am happy my genetic code is one of many millions in the dataset.

Every time anyone does literally anything in genomics it gets publicized. That's how the industry works. https://www.genomeweb.com/

That's great, actually my point. I just see so many of these news articles get posted and the same two posts come up with each one. There is a very anti-genomic analysis group. I think they can be as noisy as the anti-vax movement.

I am really happy with the work 23 and me is doing and I hope more comes out of them.

cool, good job. psoriasis is a bad disease.

I hope they use their genetic data to develop more drugs.

The downside is that it's probably going to be another immunobiologic that costs the price of a sedan for one dose. Still, good on 23AndMe.

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