Former CEO Anne Wojcicki has prevailed in the bankruptcy auction of 23andMe, its consumer and biopharma research businesses, and its trove of genetic data.
Her $305 million offer topped the previous front-running bid from the drugmaker Regeneron, which put up $256 million last month as part of a plan to incorporate the testing company’s assets into its own R&D pipeline.
Instead, 23andMe’s operations will fall under the control of TTAM Research Institute, pending final court approval.
TTAM, a non-profit formed and led by Wojcicki, has said that it will make no changes to 23andMe’s consumer genome services or its privacy policy, and that it plans to adopt new data safeguards—as the eventual ownership and fate of the company’s DNA sequences had become a major public concern, since the Chapter 11 filing was announced in March.
Wojcicki pushed to reopen the bidding process earlier this month, after saying that TTAM had obtained financial support from an unnamed Fortune 500 company, which allowed it to place a higher bid.
“I am thrilled that TTAM Research Institute will be able to continue the mission of 23andMe to help people access, understand and benefit from the human genome,” Wojcicki said in a statement. “We believe it is critical that individuals are empowered to have choice and transparency with respect to their genetic data and have the opportunity to continue to learn about their ancestry and health risks as they wish.”
According to TTAM, the deal includes binding commitments that it will honor 23andMe’s policy of allowing individuals to delete their account and genetic data, as well as opt out of research participation. De-identified data will continue to be used for scientific and biomedical studies.
TTAM also said that, should the ownership and control of 23andMe change again in the future, including through another bankruptcy, any new buyer must agree to adopt the same privacy policies.
“We are pleased that the competitive bidding process has resulted in significantly more value to our stakeholders while enhancing critical protections around customer privacy, choice and consent with respect to their genetic data,” said 23andMe’s board chair, Mark Jensen. “We will work to complete the transaction quickly so that 23andMe can begin its next chapter as a nonprofit.”
A court hearing on the deal’s final approval has been scheduled for Tuesday, June 17; Regeneron remains listed as the backup bidder.
The development comes more than a year after Wojcicki first outlined plans to take 23andMe private, after the company’s stock value had dropped by more than 97% since going public in 2021.
23andMe’s patience appears to have paid off, as the $305 million price tag significantly tops a previously rejected offer from Wojcicki last summer, which had totaled about $74 million.