Anne Wojcicki on 23andMe’s Second Life
There’s a lot of confusion around 23andMe: Is the company still in business? Is it now owned by Regeneron, the biotech company that once tried to buy it? Are its genetic test kits still available for sale? And if you’re a customer, what happens to your data? It’s been about a year since 23andMe plummeted into Chapter 11 following a series of financial and regulatory misfortunes. Last summer, in bankruptcy court, the company’s founder and former CEO, Anne Wojcicki, won a bidding war against Regeneron and took over 23andMe’s assets, most importantly the genetic data of millions of users, for $305 million. The company now sits under TTAM Research Institute, a nonprofit Wojcicki established to take 23andMe private.
Its nonprofit status means 23andMe is now more focused on making a positive impact than selling test kits. “We have, in many ways, the same mission and the same business, but it’s 100 percent aligned now with having a scientific impact,” Wojcicki told Observer at the Semafor World Economy conference in Washington D.C. last week. “Everything that we do now is through that angle of the impact of the foundation.”
TTAM is a nonprofit medical research organization, which means it isn’t bound by the 5 percent annual payout rule required of private charities like the Gates Foundation. Instead, it must continuously engage in medical research. The structure also adds a layer of protection for user data. If TTAM were to shut down, it couldn’t simply sell the data to, say, a hedge fund; the assets would have to be transferred to another nonprofit with a similar mission. During congressional testimony last year, Wojcicki also pledged never to sell data to China or any entity owned by a foreign adversary.
At its peak, 23andMe was valued at $6 billion when it went public in 2021. By the time it filed for bankruptcy, its market cap had fallen to around $20 million. A major turning point came in late 2023, when the company suffered a data breach that ultimately affected nearly seven million users, including relatives of more than 10,000 users whose accounts were directly compromised. The incident sparked a “delete 23andMe” campaign, prompting about two million users (out of 15 million) to leave the platform before the restructuring.
“Part of the reason why we became a nonprofit was to protect the data in perpetuity,” Wojcicki said. “Going forward as a nonprofit, it gives it a new level of stability.”
Despite the user losses, she maintains that customers retained control over their data. “As painful as the last couple of years have been, what I’m proud of is that we honored our word by making sure customers always had a choice,” she said.
TTAM is funded by both 23andMe’s revenue and outside capital, and Wojcicki said it’s on track to cover research spending through revenue alone. The organization is governed by a board with close ties to Wojcicki and the biotech world, including Stephen Quake, head of science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; her sister Janet Wojcicki, an epidemiology professor at UCSF; her family office CEO Stephen Magowan; and seasoned biotech executive Brad Margus.
A focus on research
Earlier this month, 23andMe published a major study in the science journal Nature on genetic predictors for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. The study offers the first direct genetic evidence explaining why people respond differently to medications like Ozempic and Wegovy. Analyzing data from more than 27,000 participants, researchers identified genetic markers linked to both weight-loss success and the risk of severe side effects.
This kind of scientific contribution is now the company’s core focus. Medical research is notoriously expensive and slow. 23andMe is trying to disrupt that model by building what Wojcicki describes as “a massive, ongoing, never-ending research cohort where you can ask all kinds of questions.” Even when recruiting narrowly defined groups—for example, only people with Parkinson’s—the company asks them a wide range of questions, from serious conditions like cancer to traits as specific as sneezing in response to sunlight. “We ask all kinds of questions, and because we have all this data—and 13 million people participating—you can do research almost like it’s a Google query,” she said during an onstage interview last week.
Wojcicki’s sister, former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, died in August 2024 at age 56 after a two-year battle with non-small-cell lung cancer. “She was really clear that you should do whatever you can with my data that advances lung cancer,” Wojcicki said. “So we want to reflect whatever is in the interest of our customer.” She emphasized that 23andMe does not sell user data and only shares scientific insights with partners.
“I have two primary goals,” Wojcicki said. “One, that every person in the world can benefit from genetic testing. Everyone should know their genetic information. And two, to build the world’s largest open-source research platform so we can answer important questions faster and with far less capital.”