Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe on One Million-DNA March and More (Video)

Last week, I paid a visit to the Mountain View, Calif., offices of personal genomics company 23andMe, which just raised more than $50 million in a new funding round, to add to the $68 million it has garnered since it was founded in 2006.

The new financing includes Russian investor Yuri Milner, as well as existing ones including Sergey Brin of Google, New Enterprise Associates, Google Ventures and MPM Capital.

While there, I interviewed CEO Anne Wojcicki about what she plans to do with all that money, including the company’s effort to get one million people to get detailed information on their DNA by cutting the price of its tests to $99.

23andMe’s Personal Genome service now offers 244 reports on health and personal traits, as well as genealogy and ancestry information that people can share socially. That’s down from the original $999 price that provided only 14 reports.

Wojcicki said she hopes that will spur more interest about from whence we came, and also how important it is to know your own genetics, to be aware of, prepare for and also prevent diseases of all kinds.

(On a personal note, that is exactly what happened to me after Wojcicki contacted me in China, after I had a serious stroke, to give me critical info from my own 23andme profile about a blood anomoly I had that was key to my care.)

Here’s the video of my interview:

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