00:00Talk us through, first of all, buying back the company and the decision to reinvent oneself as a nonprofit and
00:07how that experience has been thus far.
00:10It has definitely been quite a journey. It's been an amazing 20 years.
00:14I always say it's never been without an adventure almost every day for those 20 years.
00:19It was a very easy decision for me to decide that I want to buy the company back.
00:23I'm passionate about 23andMe. I'm passionate about all my members, the 13 million people who've participated in 23andMe who've been
00:32part of this journey.
00:33And what I'm most passionate about is the research and the potential of what we can do.
00:38And so the reason why I bought it back as a nonprofit is really so that I can lean into
00:43exclusively the two key components.
00:46And that is, one, everyone should have their genetic information. Every single person can benefit from those insights.
00:52And number two, we should be the world's largest open science platform.
00:57We should be powering every single researcher in the world to be able to make discoveries out of the 23andMe
01:04community.
01:05Well, talk us through, I mean, how this is going to be different as a nonprofit, because I think about
01:11your path to financial viability here, if you want to call it that.
01:14And, I mean, to my reading, it looks like that's going to depend on basically bringing and paying customers when
01:20it comes to your DNA tests and also, you know, folks who want to pay for subscriptions for more advanced
01:26health reports, which is what you were trying to do as, you know, a profit-seeking entity here.
01:31So how do you plan to sort of make that a reality in your current form as a nonprofit?
01:38Yeah, it's a great question.
01:40And I think one of the things that's worth emphasizing is historically, when we were a public company, one of
01:45the main things that we had leaned into was drug discovery.
01:48And that was an incredibly expensive initiative.
01:50It was wildly successful with GSK, but we shut that down back in 2003, 2004, when we realized, like, there
01:59was not the financial market to support drug discovery, particularly of novel drug discovery.
02:04So what's different today is really leaning into the direct-to-consumer movement, which I think 23andMe was incredibly early
02:13on back in 2006 when we launched.
02:15And you see the success of the consumer movement now.
02:18You look at Maha, you look at companies like HIMSS, like Rho, there is a wild enthusiasm for individuals to
02:24be in control of their information.
02:26And I think that's only accelerating in an AI world.
02:29I think, second, the research platform that we have is becoming more and more valuable as everyone is starting to
02:35use large data sets for drug discovery.
02:38And I think as a nonprofit, we have the ability to get philanthropic dollars.
02:42We're looking to get support from the government.
02:45We're looking to make sure that this is an entity that is accessible to everybody and that we're powering research.
02:50So we look at that financial model as really being the consumer business, which I think is really taking off
02:55the research side, where there's still quite a bit of interest from the pharma world.
02:59And then, third, philanthropic and government support to make sure that there's access to this open science platform.
03:05So you do have one of the largest genetic databases in the world.
03:07Are you actively partnering with AI firms or pharma players to monetize those databases?
03:14We are not actively working with any of the big AI companies right now.
03:19But what 23andMe has done is done their own research.
03:22And so 23andMe was actually the only genetics company at the big AI conference, NeurIPS, where we actually presented data
03:29about using all of our information to be able to do disease risk prediction.
03:34And I think that's what I see as a lot of the future for us, is that we as individuals
03:39want to understand better what are we actually at risk for.
03:42Do you need a colonoscopy?
03:44Do you need a mammogram?
03:45So how does your genetic information and all your lifestyle information factor in so that you can really understand what
03:52your risks are and then focus on that?
03:54And your data also show big differences in how people respond to GLP-1 drugs.
03:59So do you think we're edging closer to a world where people would need to be screened before they can
04:03get any of those prescriptions?
04:06I think we are already behind the curve on areas like pharmacogenomics.
04:10So pharmacogenomics is a well-known, well-established field where people know that certain medications have a response with someone's
04:19genetic information.
04:19And in fact, there was just a big lawsuit that was settled in Hawaii where so many people in the
04:26state of Hawaii don't respond to the drug Plavix that that drug actually was, you know, it's an important disclosure
04:32to have on that about who is going to respond and who's not.
04:35So 23andMe already has two pharmacogenetic reports out there.
04:40I absolutely see a world where people are going to be looking at their medications to make sure that they
04:46know what medications are going to work with them.
04:48The GLP is a good example of that.
04:50But I think secondly, you're going to start to look at areas also like mammograms.
04:54Who should actually be getting a mammogram?
04:56And there was an amazing study that recently came out called Wisdom that talked about how you can use what's
05:02called polygenic risk scores.
05:03So like looking at thousands, thousands of genes to decide whether or not somebody needs a mammogram.
05:10And I do want to talk a little bit about, you know, your path forward when you think about your
05:15ambitions, especially when it comes to some of the areas that we're talking about, you know, back coming back to
05:21the idea of financial viability.
05:22Are you going to require funds to do this?
05:25Do you see fundraising in your future even structured as a nonprofit?
05:31So there's a couple of things we see.
05:33We see absolutely the consumer business is coming back.
05:35We see that people are interested in their genetic information.
05:38This world of longevity, personalized information, genetics is absolutely taking off.
05:44And we see that there is a very viable business just with the consumer world.
05:47I think, secondly, we see lots of philanthropists who are interested in accelerating research.
05:53And 23andMe is by far and away the most efficient way to launch large-scale research studies.
06:00So, for example, in honor of my sister, my sister launched the lung cancer community.
06:05So we are now one of the largest lung cancer registries that are out there.
06:09That data set will be available to all researchers who want to do research on lung cancer.
06:14So we're seeing great enthusiasm in the consumer side, on the direct-to-consumer business,
06:18as well as with philanthropists with respect to funding really unique research that cannot happen anywhere else,
06:25as well as getting financial dollars from government and other entities.
06:30Well, when it comes to philanthropists specifically, I know that you recently told the information that,
06:35you know, you're trying to source a $100 million capital campaign coming from that class of donors.
06:41And I wonder, you know, how close you are to that target.
06:45And, you know, if you do reach it, what would you would plan to spend that money on?
06:50So the main thing that the $100 million capital campaign is really about how we can actually open up our
06:56data set
06:57to the entire research community.
06:58And I should emphasize, like, our goal is to accelerate research for all researchers around the globe.
07:05We really believe that by having the 23andMe data set accessible for people to make discoveries,
07:11you're going to accelerate research everywhere in almost every disease area.
07:15So that $100 million campaign will support the research infrastructure, the ethicists,
07:20making sure that you have the trusted research environment, privacy, security,
07:25the research team that does data quality,
07:27making sure that it supports all of that while 23andMe is growing back.
07:31So that's what we're going to do now.
07:31So that's what we're going to do now.
07:31So that's what we're going to do now.
07:31So that's what we're going to do now.
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