23andMe: an entirely avoidable disaster?

This article from Enrique Dans, writing in March 2025, examines the precipitous decline of 23andMe, a company founded in 2006 that pioneered direct-to-consumer DNA testing for health predispositions. Initially successful with significant investment and recognition, 23andMe faced critical scrutiny and regulatory pushback from the FDA. The FDA was concerned about users misinterpreting genetic risk information, exemplified by the "Jolie effect," leading to a ban on the company providing health-related data. Consequently, 23andMe's business model, once groundbreaking, was severely hampered, placing it in competition with services offering only ancestry information. The author suggests that this downfall of a promising innovation might have been avoidable.This article is also available in English on my Medium page, «23andMe: an entirely avoidable disaster?»

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