Aggregated News
Residents of New York State who want to send saliva for DNA testing by 23andMe should do their spitting outside state lines.
The state's health department considers 23andMe's genome scan to be a medical test that must be approved by regulators and ordered by a doctor.
Whether the consumer genomics services are indeed medical tests or - as 23andMe contends - merely informational, is not just a regulatory issue. It is a business question, too. And the two leading companies in the business, 23andMe and Navigenics, have different views of the matter.
Navigenics, which successfully applied to have its test licensed in New York, has now essentially put aside marketing to consumers, aiming instead at doctors. It is also courting corporations that might use the test as part of their employee wellness programs.
Navigenics's $1,000 service offers only health-related information, not genealogical data as 23andMe's does. Navigenics also offers genetic counseling to help people understand their test results.
"It is more effective to partner with a medical institution rather than do an end-run around them with a direct-to-consumer model," said...
The state's health department considers 23andMe's genome scan to be a medical test that must be approved by regulators and ordered by a doctor.
Whether the consumer genomics services are indeed medical tests or - as 23andMe contends - merely informational, is not just a regulatory issue. It is a business question, too. And the two leading companies in the business, 23andMe and Navigenics, have different views of the matter.
Navigenics, which successfully applied to have its test licensed in New York, has now essentially put aside marketing to consumers, aiming instead at doctors. It is also courting corporations that might use the test as part of their employee wellness programs.
Navigenics's $1,000 service offers only health-related information, not genealogical data as 23andMe's does. Navigenics also offers genetic counseling to help people understand their test results.
"It is more effective to partner with a medical institution rather than do an end-run around them with a direct-to-consumer model," said...