Top U.S. Medical Centers Roll Out DNA Sequencing Clinics for Healthy (and Often Wealthy) Clients
By Rebecca Robbins,
STAT
| 08. 16. 2019
The new clinics generally serve only those who can afford to pay cash. That worries some in the medical community.
Seizing on the surging popularity of at-home DNA testing kits, top academic medical institutions are opening clinics that promise to probe much deeper into your DNA — if you’re willing to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars out of pocket to learn about disease risks that may be lurking in your genes.
Genomic sequencing programs that cater to apparently healthy adults have been started in the past few years at the Mayo Clinic; the University of California, San Francisco; and the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, a nonprofit research institution in Alabama. Now, two top Boston hospitals are getting into the potentially lucrative business.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Friday unveiled a new Preventive Genomics Clinic that will offer a menu of options for a genetic workup, with price tags ranging from $250 to $2,950, depending on how many genes are analyzed; it’s the first program of its kind that will offer the sequencing to children in addition to adults. And next month, Massachusetts General Hospital plans to launch its own clinic for adults that will offer elective sequencing at...
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