23andMe Is Under Fire. Its Founder Remains ‘Optimistic’

23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki says the company is still working out how to turn a profit.

The company is facing more than 30 lawsuits after a data breach last year exposed personal information from nearly 7 million customers’ profiles.

The CEO says the market grew but it’s just that it became more competitive.

In the future, she sees the company as an integrated care plan for everybody.

23andMe is shifting from a company that just provides genetic tests to a more comprehensive health care company.

It's an evolution for the company in terms of just providing access to your genome to now saying, “We actually want to take care of you. We want to be your partner in prevention”.

23andMe has a drug in a Phase 2 trial, an antibody for solid tumor cancers, and is starting a Phase 1 trial for a second drug, known as a natural killer cell activator, also for cancer.

It’s exciting seeing genetic data transform into a hypothesis that goes into a drug and actually seeing the impact on patients.