A federal bankruptcy court this week approved the sale of 23andMe to TTAM Research Institute - a new company launched by 23andMe's co-founder and former CEO, Anne Wojcicki. Healthcare Info Security’s Marianne Kolbasuk McGee reported that “As part of TTAM's $305 million bid, it promised to uphold the consumer genetics testing firm's current privacy policies and implement additional data safeguards.”
“Under the deal, TTAM will acquire all the assets of the health and ancestry testing company, including 23andMe's Personal Genome Service and Research Services business lines, and its Lemonaid telehealth business.” McGee wrote.
“The prospect of 23andMe's trove of genetic information on millions of people passing to the highest bidder had sparked outcry when it was announced in May that New York-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals had won an auction to acquire the firm for $256 million,” John Ruwitch explained for NPR. “Despite Regeneron's pledges to honor 23andMe's privacy policies, more than two dozen states sued to halt the deal, arguing that genetic information is a unique and fundamentally different type of property than the kind that might normally change hands in a bankruptcy sale.”
When the bidding was reopened, the nonprofit TTAM Research Institute, established in May, won the bid.
“I am thrilled that TTAM will be able to build on the mission of 23andMe to help people access, understand and benefit from the human genome. As a nonprofit, TTAM will be a champion of improving our knowledge of DNA – the code of life – for the public good, creating a resource to advance human health globally,” Anne Wojcicki said in a statement.
The sale is expected to close in the coming weeks.
