23andMe Solidifies Business Model with Big Genentech Partnership

January 6, 2014 | 23andMe has signed a deal with Genentech to sequence the whole genomes of 3,000 Parkinson's patients and relatives in its customer community, sharing both genetic and clinical data with the big biotech. The deal is worth up to $60 million in milestone payments to 23andMe, a huge source of revenue for a company whose business model has always been somewhat opaque. CEO Anne Wojcicki says nine more deals along the same lines are in the pipeline. Most observers have assumed that 23andMe's long-term path to profitability was to share anonymized customer data with drug developers, while attracting users with an inexpensive, highly personalized genotyping service; today's announcement both confirms and validates that strategy. At Forbes, Matthew Herper has the details, along with his expert analysis. Forbes