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Managers, including the California Attorney General, wonder what will happen to the data collected by the company.
The 23andme genetic test company filed a request for protection against the bankruptcy of Chapter 11 in the United States in the midst of the low demand and losses of a data violation in 2023. Its co-founder and CEO resigned.
23andme, based in San Francisco, announced Sunday that it would seek to sell “almost all of its assets” thanks to a reorganization plan approved by the court.
The actions of the company fell 50% to 88 cents during negotiations on Monday after the co-founder Anne Wojcicki, who made several takeover offers, resigned from her CEO. 23andme did not say if there were other interested bidders. He will continue to operate during the sales process, having obtained funding of $ 35 million during the weekend.
Wojcicki intends to bid out of 23ands while the company continues a sale through the bankruptcy process. In a declaration on social networksWojcicki said she had resigned from her CEO post to be “in the best position” as an independent tenderer.
“There is no doubt that the challenges encountered by 23andme thanks to an evolving business model have been real, but my belief in the business and its future is unshakable,” she added later.
Managers, including the California Attorney General, Rob Bonta, have questioned what would happen to the genetic data collected by 23andme, although company privacy policies say that the data could be sold to other companies. The company said that the bankruptcy process would not affect the way it stores, manages or protects customer data.
23andme drew a lot of attention from investors when it was made public via a special acquisition vehicle (SPAC) managed by billionaire Richard Branson to an assessment of $ 3.5 billion in 2021. Its market value later peaked at almost $ 6 billion due to its booming interest in DNA test kits, but demand allowed 23andme And his blackstal rival and his rival.
Sales of consumption kits frequently resumed during the financial holidays, but 23andme had a hard time remembering customers mainly because people would use the kits once and saw little reasons to order another. Bernstein’s research analysts said that the market for ancestry testing kits could be about to cover.
In 2023, pirates exhibited personal data of nearly seven million customers 23andm over a period of five months, bringing a major blow to the company’s reputation and aggravating its growth problems. The violation has made the alarm among customers concerned about their privacy and how DNA test companies manage their data.
23andme finally agreed at the end of last year for a payment of $ 30 million in a trial linked to the violation.
Based on a promise
23andme was founded in 2006 with the promise to revolutionize the future of genetics and health care. The company has become known for its saliva -based DNA test kits, purchased by millions of customers wishing to know more about their ancestry, and then plunged further into health research and drug development.
But the last years have been far from a smooth navigation for this. And the voluntary bankruptcy ceilings on Sunday of the months of turbulence.
In September, all of its independent administrators resigned in a rare decision after acquisition negotiations with Wojcicki.
The company then announced in November that it would dismiss 40% of its workforce, or more than 200 employees, and interrupted its therapeutic division. And in January, the Special Council Committee declared that it explored strategic alternatives, including a possible sale.
Beyond the violation of data, the uncertainty about the future of the company has also led some to the 23andme customers recently to delete their data.
Friday, a few days before the bankruptcy deposit of 23andme, Bonta issued a urgent alert Recalling 23 and customers of their legal rights under the law of the State and called them to consider deleting and destroying all the genetic data held by the company. The Bonta office highlighted the financial distress in the process of 23 and the “draft of consumer -sensitive data” that the company has amassed.
