WHAT WENT WRONG AT 23ANDME? GENOMICS FIRM FACES CLOSURE

In the United States, customers of genetictesting companies aren't protected under laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (1996), because these firms lie outside of health care, for which there are strict controls over genetic data. "23andMe has the largest cohort of genotyped people in the world used for research," says Abraham Palmer, a behavioral geneticist at the University of California, San Diego, who is in an ongoing research partnership with the company to study people who have used prescription opioids. "Over the past several years, there have been newer, shinier objects that that have captured pharma interest and attention," says Matt Nelson, the vice-president of genetics and genomics at Deerfield, a health-care investment firm in New York City, who was previously at GSK and involved in setting up the company's partnership with 23andMe.