Genetic testing firm 23andMe files for bankruptcy

Gene investigating steadfast 23andMe said connected Sunday it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy extortion successful bid to facilitate its sale, aft years of struggling to find a sustainable concern model.

In a connection announcing the bankruptcy, the steadfast said its CEO, Anne Wojcicki, had resigned effectual immediately. She volition stay connected the company's committee of directors.

"After a thorough valuation of strategical alternatives, we person determined that a court-supervised merchantability process is the champion way guardant to maximize the worth of the business," Mark Jensen, seat and subordinate of the Special Committee of the committee of directors, said successful the statement.

Late past year, the institution said it was cutting astir 40% of its workforce - astir 200 employees - and discontinuing further improvement of each its therapies arsenic portion of a restructuring program, according to Reuters.

In September, each 7 of the company's autarkic directors resigned en masse, citing their vexation with the CEO's "strategic direction" and efforts to instrumentality 23andMe private.

The company, which went nationalist successful 2021, had ne'er made a profit. The banal changeable up pursuing the listing, concisely valuing the institution astatine $6 billion. Wojcicki, who owned 49% of the company, became a billionaire.

Its halfway product, an at-home DNA investigating kit, offers "personalized familial insights" that the institution says tin emblem imaginable wellness risks specified arsenic one's likelihood of processing Alzheimers oregon definite cancers.

23andMe tried to person one-time buyers into subscribers with the committedness of continued feedback and personalized wellness plans but had reportedly fallen abbreviated of its goals.

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