23andme Opens for Business: Let the genotyping begin!

[ECO]

It's been an exciting couple of days in the world of personalized genomics, with the launch of deCODEme, and some announcements from Navigenics.



Today the mysterious 23andme.com has pulled the sheets off their service, which includes a saliva collection kit (from DNAGenotek), and a genotyping service that consists of Illumina's HumanHap550+ chip combined with a "23andMe custom-designed set that analyzes more than 30,000 additional SNPs". All this for $999.

The new website is simplistic and straightforward, it has obviously been designed to bring DNA testing into the mainstream. There is a "genetics 101" section which explains the basics of genes, SNPs, heredity, and phenotypes.

One unique section is "For the Experts" which includes some white papers presumably written by 23andme statistical geneticists on the methods the company uses, as well as open letters to the scientific and medical communities.

Additionally there is a section which details the phenotypes that 23andme will be investigating initially:




Perhaps most interesting is the tag line included on the front page of website:




It really wasn't the first...deCODEme beat them by a day.

Overall it's a nice site. Will be interesting to see adoption of this compared to deCODEme's service which offers >1 million SNPs for $14 less!

[ECO]

New York Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/us...ce&oref=slogin

[gene-y-us]

23andme is offering fewer snps, but it is a customized chip, which likely has more meaningful information than the million snip chip

being a CA resident, I cant even sign up for decodeme's service (nor can people from a number of other states), I'll be interested to hear more about Navigenics offering when they actually launch (with a real product) but would be more inclined to go with a US based company.

[ECO]

That was an interesting restriction that deCODEme placed on their own service, however if I read it correctly, you can indeed sign up, you just can't use the diagnostic services to estimate risk. I guess that's too close to a "diagnosis" for them to feel comfortable with what the FDA might do.

I can only wonder how that will impact 23andMe and Navigenics. deCODEme certainly wouldn't restrict the biggest state in the US without sound legal reasons...