Comment by dehrmann
Was there an internal sense that the business model was flawed? You can only sell so many DNA tests to people, and the pharma research angle always felt like more of a pipe dream than a viable business.
Was there an internal sense that the business model was flawed? You can only sell so many DNA tests to people, and the pharma research angle always felt like more of a pipe dream than a viable business.
The company bet heavily on pharma/genomics, and it was a bad bet.
When I was there, people were pretty confident in this bet. They had just signed a huge deal with GSK, so it seemed to be going well. There wasn't widespread dissent at the time (~2016-2017). I imagine its different now that the stock price has crashed over 10x.
The company did follow Ancestry.com pretty closely. Ancestry did not bet heavily on genomics. Instead, they bet heavily on a subscription model and focused more on consumer interest in their ancestors. This has worked out a lot better for them than 23andMe.
FWIW, I agree it's obvious in retrospect that pharma was a bad bet. Leadership should have made better decisions.