Complete Genomics seals $45M for cheaper gene sequencing
Complete Genomics, provider of supposedly cheaper and faster DNA sequencing services, has raised $45 million in a fourth round of funding — a huge amount for a biotech company in today’s economic environment. Based in Mountain View, Calif., the company says it will be able to sequence people’s genes in only a few days, and for the bargain price of $5,000.
Apparently, genetic companies are where it’s at in the life science market right now. Earlier… Continue Reading
DNA-decoding startup 23andMe raises another $2.6M from Google
Google has invested another $2.6 million in 23andMe, the genetics startup co-founded by Anne Wojcicki (who’s married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin). The funding was revealed in a regulatory filing first spotted by Silicon Alley Insider.
Mountain View, Calif.-based 23andMe charges a $399 fee to provide customers with information about their genes, such as their predisposition to different diseases and their ancestry. Customers spit into a tube, send it to the company’s lab, then four to six… Continue Reading
23andMe gets $11M boost to decode your DNA
23andMe, the company that deciphers consumers’ genomes for them, has raised $11 million of an anticipated $24.26 million second round of capital. The company was cofounded by Anne Wojcicki, wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
The firm didn’t disclose its recent investors, but peHub noted this morning that venture capital firm Mohr Davidow Ventures has just divested from the company. While MDV first acquired shares in 23andMe, it sold them back to the company 18 months… Continue Reading
Yahoo, LinkedIn execs join personal genomics startup 23andMe
23andMe, the startup that helps consumers decode their genetic information, has announced two big hires: former LinkedIn Vice President of Revenue and Customer Operations, Sarah Imbach, is the Mountain View, Calif. startup’s new chief operating officer; former Yahoo User Experience Vice President, Larry Tesler, has been named a “Product Fellow.”
23andMe says Imbach was at LinkedIn for four and a half years and before that worked as an independent consultant and at PayPal. Tesler’s background include… Continue Reading
Roundup: Six Apart launches ad network, Microsoft acquires Xobni…maybe and more
Here’s the latest action:
Six Apart evolves into an ad network — The blogging company behind MovableType, TypePad and Vox is offering a new advertising program which will give publishers more control over ads and revenue from their sites. The company claims its ad network will be better than the many others out there (with more popping up everyday) because it has the best experience with advertisements specific to blogs. The company also launched Six Apart Services… Continue Reading
23andMe allows a peek at its genomics service, minus the $999 fee
23andMe — the Google-backed startup that scans your genome for disease-risk factors and other information, now lets anyone see how the service works without first charging $999 for the privilege. My first impression: It packs a tremendous amount of information into clean, uncluttered pages that are still relatively easy to understand even for newcomers to genetics.
The 23andMe service stands in particularly sharp contrast to a similar offering from deCODEme, which I reviewed unfavorably here and… Continue Reading
23andMe makes genomics personal — and slick
(UPDATED: See below.)
As I discussed a few weeks ago with respect to deCODEme — a “personal genomics” service hurriedly launched last November by Iceland’s deCODE Genetics in an apparent attempt to beat 23andMe to market (it succeeded by a day or so) — these sorts of services can awfully dense and difficult to navigate. The deCODEme service appears to be particularly bad in that respect, both in terms of its design and even the underlying science… Continue Reading
23andMe’s European vacation and other personal-genomics notes
(UPDATED: Added links from Davos. Also, an earlier version of this post originally appeared at the end of this item.)
While I’ve been diving into deCODEme’s surprisingly spotty personal-genomics service, 23andMe has been whooping it up in Europe. The startup launched its consumer gene-scanning service there and made a splash at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where it handed out 1,000 free saliva-collection kits to attendees and another 50 for “elite journalists.” (Google’s Sergei Brin —… Continue Reading
deCODEme and its questionable disease-risk predictions
(UPDATED: Original final paragraphs on 23andMe broken out as a separate post here.)
A few days ago, I noted that deCODEme, the personal-genomics spinoff of Iceland’s deCODE Genetics, looks to be offering disease-risk predictions based on surprisingly thin evidence. I looked into it a little more deeply, and while I’m not a geneticist or even a close approximation thereof, I’m still a little taken aback by how little deCODEme currently seems to be flying on where many… Continue Reading
deCODEme’s underwhelming personal-genomics service
(UPDATED: See below.)
Personal-genomics vendors like 23andMe and deCODEme, which promise to give ordinary individuals a peek at their genetic inheritance, have received a ton of press attention since they launched last November (not least of all from us — see here and here for starters). Unless you happened to have a spare $1,000 laying around, however, you were pretty much out of luck if you simply wanted to know exactly what you might be getting for… Continue Reading
23andMe: Will the personal-genomics company need Big Pharma to make money?
23andMe held its official launch today, as expected, and in the process managed to address a few of the nagging questions that remained after I reviewed its service over the weekend. “Addressed” is definitely the operative word here, though, because firm answers are still in short supply.
For instance, can personal genomics really make money for a startup like 23andMe? (To recap briefly for those joining the show already in progress, the company will scan your… Continue Reading
23andMe lets you search and share your genome — today
(UPDATED: See below.)
Personal genomics is finally here.
23andMe, the Google-backed startup that promises to let individuals search and share their personal genetic information, just unveiled its service on its Web site. (A formal announcement is planned for Monday. For links to our previous coverage, see the end of this post or click here.) For $999, anyone can spit in a plastic tube the company will send you, then mail it back for a kind of shortcut scan… Continue Reading
Will 23andMe and Navigenics lock up your genome and charge you for the key?
Over the last few months, startups like 23andMe and Navigenics have attracted a fair bit of attention for promising to let ordinary people search through their own genomes to better understand their disease risk, genealogy and ancestry. (For our coverage, see the links at the end of this item.) But one of the first major attempts to take a close look at them — courtesy of the November issue of Portfolio — left me with… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007
Featured companies: 23andMe, APT Pharmaceuticals, Hyperion Therapeutics, Isis Biopolymer, Virogenomics
UPDATED at 10:30am PT.
APT Pharma raises $22M for transplant and heart drugs — Burlingame, Calif.’s APT Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharma currently focused on a drug to fight organ-transplant rejection, raised $22 million in an extension of its first funding round. Investors included Versant Ventures, Great Point Partners, Vivo Ventures and Charter Life Sciences.
APT, which acquires its drug candidates instead of developing them itself, has raised a total of… Continue Reading
Complete Genomics and BioNanomatrix rev up the fast, cheap and out-of-control genome race
Things are starting to get crowded in the race to sequence entire human genomes quickly and relatively cheaply — usually meaning somewhere in the territory of $1,000 per genome, compared to the $100,000+ it costs with current technology. At least four startups have taken on the $1,000 genome challenge, two of which have already been acquired by larger companies. (See details at the end of the first item here.)
Last week, two relatively new venture-backed startups… Continue Reading
Carry your genome around on your iPhone
What if you around your genome — the full details of your personal DNA — on your cellphone and compare it instantly to the DNA of a prospective dating partner simply by sharing over a WiFi connection?
That just one bizarre thought that comes to mind, now that Jay Flatley, chief executive of Illumina, says he is already carrying around his genotype on his iPhone. Check out David Hamilton’s post on all this over at VentureBeat… Continue Reading
Decoding 23andMe — Illumina spills the beans
First, it was self-described 23andMe investor Martin Varsavsky who spilled some early information about the secretive personal-genomics startup founded by Sergey Brin’s new wife, Anne Wojcicki, and now backed by Google and Genentech. (See our coverage here.) Now more details about 23andMe’s plans to help individuals map their own genomes are emerging, courtesy of Illumina, a gene-scanning company partnered with the startup.
At an investor conference yesterday, Illumina CEO Jay Flatley sketched out 23andMe’s plans and… Continue Reading
Craig Venter’s genome and our brave new world
(UPDATED: See below.)
It’s finally all about him.
By “him,” of course, I mean J. Craig Venter, the iconoclastic scientist who had his entire genome sequenced, posted in a public database, and analyzed in a scientific paper published Monday in the online journal PLoS Biology. If for some reason you hadn’t heard, feel free to take a moment to read all about it in the NYT, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, Reuters, CNN, or any of the… Continue Reading
Navigenics provides your genetic information, gets high-profile backing
Navigenics, a new secretive Silicon Valley company, wants to let you access your genetic information, so you can see what sort of diseases or sicknesses you may be prone to. It has backing from high-profile venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital.
It joins another company, 23andMe, doing something very similar — each exploiting the abundance of information available about the human genome, so that regular people can find information about themselves that they’ve never… Continue Reading
Personal-genetics startup Navigenics, a competitor to Google-backed 23andMe, unstealths
(UPDATED: See below.)
Navigenics, a new personal genetics startup with some serious backing, threw back the curtain over the weekend by unveiling its Web site. The Redwood Shores, Calif., startup says it aims to provide individuals with their genetic profiles and then to “arm” them with ways to improve their future heath.
This is very similar to what 23andMe, a similar startup backed by Google and Genentech (see our coverage here and here), intends to do. Adding to… Continue Reading