UPDATED 21:26 EDT / JULY 25 2018

EMERGING TECH

Glaxo invests $300M in 23andme in return for four-year development partnership

GlaxoSmithKline plc is the latest investor in genetic-testing company 23andme Inc., putting $300 million into the company in return for a four-year partnership that will use its genetic data to develop new drugs.

Once a darling of Silicon Valley thanks to developing the genetic testing from home market, the company clashed with the Food & Drug Administration in 2014 over marketing the genetic tests to provide health reports. But it made peace and has since gotten approval for several health reports based on consumer data.

Competition in the form of Ancestry.com Inc. which links users through a genealogy database has reportedly seen 23andme lose market share, but with the market for genetic testing expected to climb to $22 billion a year by 2024, there’s still plenty of room for growth.

The deal with GSK plans to leverage the vast amounts of clinical information 23andMe collects from customers, which are said to be more than 5 million to-date, to help develop medical products that are highly tailored to specific groups of patients.

Reuters noted that the deal won’t yield new products overnight, but GSK said it will accelerate its drug development work, “which has lagged behind rivals in producing multibillion-dollar blockbuster drugs.”

“This collaboration will enable us to deliver on what many customers have been asking for — cures or treatments for diseases,” Chief Executive Anne Wojcicki said in a statement. “By leveraging the genetic and phenotypic information provided by consenting 23andMe customers and combining it with GSK’s incredible expertise and resources in drug discovery, we believe we can more quickly make treating and curing diseases a reality.”

With the investment from GSK 23andme has now raised a whopping $786.1 million in its 12 years, begging the obvious question: When is it going to go public?

So far, 23andme has remained quiet on its IPO prospects, but with a Who’s Who of venture capital firms having invested in it, an exit has to be in the cards at some point. The valuation on 23andme as of its last round was $1.8 billion. Its current valuation isn’t known.

Photo: scalleja/Flickr

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