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All Those 23andMe Spit Tests Were Part of a Bigger Plan

23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki wants to make drugs using insights from millions of customer DNA samples, and doesn't think that should bother anyone. First 23andMe plans to sell tastemakers on their mail-in spit kits as a way to learn sort-of-interesting things about their DNA makeup, such as its likely ancestral origins and the chance it would lead to certain health conditions. Eventually the compnay will able to lower prices enough to make the kits broadly accessible, allowing 23andMe to build a database big enough to identify new links between diseases and particular genes. Later, this research would fuel the creation of drugs the company could tailor to different genetic profiles. 23andMe would become a new kind of health-care business, sitting somewhere between a Big Pharma lab, a Big Tech company, and a trusted neighborhood doctor.