23andMe, the company whose mail-in self-testing kits became synonymous with DNA testing, is filing for bankruptcy amid slowing sales four years after it went public. Anne Wojcicki, who co-founded 23andMe in 2006, is stepping down as CEO as the company tries to find a buyer.
In January, 23andMe said it was exploring options for a sale amid slowing demand for its product and the fallout of a major data breach in 2023. In 2024, the company agreed to a financial settlement for the breach, which affected 6.9 million users. The company had also announced layoffs of about 40% of its workforce in late 2024. Recently, the company’s stock dipped below a dollar, putting it in danger of being delisted from the NASDAQ.
In a note to customers, the company said nothing is currently changing about the way it stores, manages or protects customer data and that the company is still open for business and selling DNA kits. “Through this process, we will seek to find a partner who shares our commitment to customer data privacy and allows our mission of helping people access, understand and benefit from the human genome to live on,” the company said in its post.
At its peak, 23andMe became the best-known name in the emerging area of DNA self-testing, with users paying $99 for kits that gave them insights into their genetic makeup, potential relatives and ancestry. But the company’s momentum slowed down in recent years after its $3.5 billion public offering in 2021.
People who have used 23andMe and are concerned about what might happen to their data in a sale have options: They can download their information then delete their account, as well as ask the company to discard their DNA material in addition to deleting the data. Doing so will keep DNA information from being used in future research, but it can’t be removed from research that has already been done.
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