Saturday, October 18, 2008

23andMe!

No,I haven't turned 23 nor am I fearful that I'm getting old.
23andMe is the newest kid on the block in the biotech arena .A startup funded by our good old Google brothers.( I can see my biotech mates going YAY!!! )
Well,the company was founded by Sergey's wife Anna which made a lot easier for Anna (No surprise there!).The startup sells portable SpitKits for $399 a piece(around INR 20,000),where a person has to spit in the kit provided and has to take his spitted spitkit to a nearby certified lab for detailed genetic profile ( WELL,too much of money and too much of a work for a lazy bum like me just to know what my ancestors were made of and what diseases am I more likely to get in my future life !).

Frankly,how are they making my life easier? Exactly,for what am I paying these people my hard-earned money?What value are they creating in the society?How are they making this world a better place? These are some of the questions every business has to ask itself sooner or later,and these guys certainly haven't done this basic exercise.

Sergey gave all his fundaes on his blog,why he liked the service and how its so great and that he gotta know that he's at a greater risk of getting Parkinson's ( wow,I wudn't like to pay that kind of money to lose my sleep in the night worrying how long is it gonna be before the doctor diagnoses me with Parkinson's....I bet it must've cost him much more than a mere sleep at night in the bed...haha )
Looking at Google's strong contacts,they roped in other investors too like the biotech giant,Genentech and profiled Star Investor Mr. Warren Buffet and Famous Singer Jimmy Buffet among others to play their silly Spitgames ( Spit Parties as they like to call :P :D)
Well,one thing they can look at is helping develop better medicines by studying genetic profiles of a large no. of people,large enough that they can derive some strong analytical analogies among genetic codes and variations in human bodies.But,sadly not much luck there as the human genetic profile has already been hacked under THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT and much of the common genes have been studied.

Nonetheless,its a fun activity for people with extra money to know where your great grandfathers,great great grandfathers belonged to and what you have in common with your famous celebrities etc etc and which diseases are most likely to kill you in your old age.Its one of those things which are "nice-to-have" but certainly not "required".You do something that people really need and they will be only happy to open up their wallet and pay you for it.Simple as that!