Deals For Genetic Data Raise Issues of Privacy, Sharing
By John Lauerman and Makiko Kitamura,
Bloomberg
| 01. 14. 2015
Untitled Document
In three recent deals, drugmakers are betting that personal genetic maps will finally fulfill their early promise to unlock secrets and cure diseases.
At the same time, the agreements revived questions about privacy protections and how useful personal genetic data will prove to be.
Roche Holding AG (RHHBY) committed $1 billion to take control of Foundation Medicine Inc. (FMI), which sequences genes of cancer patients, aiming to customize treatment. Roche’s Genentech unit said it would pay as much as $60 million for access to 23andMe Inc.’s data on customers with Parkinson’s disease. And Pfizer Inc. (PFE) reached a deal that will allow the drugmaker to analyze personal genetic information from 650,000 23andMe customers, without giving terms.
The pacts, together with 23andMe’s announcement that it will enter into partnerships with eight other companies this year, boosted confidence in the commercial value of gene mapping. Since the first draft of a full human genome was deciphered in 2001, researchers have predicted breakthroughs in understanding the origins of disease, only to be frustrated as business developed slowly and regulatory issues...
Related Articles
What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great deal in common, with substantial differences in style and emphasis. Both books attempt, in different ways, to show the reader just where current research into human genomics stands, where that might be going, and why the authors are interested. In short, the influence of genomic research on our societies is already large and seems likely to change them in ways...
By Jessica Hamzelou, MIT Technology Review | 07.30.2026
As of this week in Montana, any biotech company with an experimental drug has a clear path to selling it to consumers. Companies whose drugs have been through preliminary testing—sometimes in as few as 10 healthy people—can pay $12,500 to...
By Jessica Hamzelou, MIT Technology Review | 07.23.2026
When it comes to organ donation, time is everything. As soon as an organ has been carefully removed from a donor’s body, it starts to deteriorate. Surgeons have a matter of hours to get it into a recipient. Leave...
By Dhruv Mehrotra , Wired | 08.03.2026
On March 13, 2025, Hugo Moreno-Mendez arrived at the McLennan County Probation Department in Waco, Texas, expecting a routine probation check-in. Instead, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were waiting to arrest him.
According to a criminal complaint reviewed by WIRED...
