Regeneron promised to comply with 23andMe’s consumer privacy policies and related data security laws.
Regeneron is snapping up the embattled genetic testing company 23andMe for $256 million, the winning bid in a bankruptcy auction, the pharma announced on Monday.
The court-supervised agreement will still be subject to the approval of a bankruptcy court, as well as other regulatory clearances. If the deal pushes through, however, Regeneron on Monday promised that it will maintain all of 23andMe’s “consumer genome services uninterrupted.” 23andMe will continue operating as a subsidiary of Regeneron.
Aside from its DNA testing services, Regeneron will also get 23andMe’s Total Health platform, which offers comprehensive testing—including exome sequencing and blood biomarker analysis—with an eye toward assessing longevity, as well as the company’s research operations which has been involved in studies on the genetics of bipolar disorder and dyslexia, creating antibodies against solid tumor indications, and genome-wide association studies of myasthenia gravis. The pharma will also gain control over 23andMe’s biobank, and Regeneron promises to “prioritize the privacy, security and ethical use of 23andMe’s customer data,” according to Monday’s release.
Lemonaid Health, 23andMe’s telehealth platform with a particular focus on women’s, men’s and mental health services, will not be part of Regeneron’s acquisition.
23andMe filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March, asking a Missouri court to allow the company to “sell substantially all of its assets.” The court approved the company’s bankruptcy bid a few days later with the express requirement that potential buyers must agree to comply with 23andMe’s privacy policy and other applicable laws. 23andMe solicited bids thereafter.
The company’s former CEO Anne Wojcicki, who at one point held a significant percentage of shares and voting rights, tried multiple times to take the company private but was ultimately rejected by a special committee of independent directors of the company.
23andMe has been in financial trouble for years. When it went public in 2021, the company was valued at $3.5 billion. During its fiscal year 2023, however, 23andMe reported a net loss of $312 million. In November 2024, the company was forced to slash its headcount by around 40%—or 200 employees—in a bid to keep the business afloat.
For Regeneron, the 23andMe acquisition could help the company beef up its business after a disappointing Q1 that analysts at BMO Capital Markets expect to lead into a “messy quarter” as the pharma tries to regain its footing. Sales of Regeneron’s Eylea franchise dropped 26% year-on-year, bringing in $1.04 billion in the U.S.
The 23andMe acquisition could also help Regeneron bolster its gene therapy pipeline. In February, the pharma announced that DB-OTO, an AAV-based gene therapy, could restore partial hearing in 10 of 12 children who were born with profound genetic hearing loss. None of the 12 treated patients developed adverse events.
DB-OTO, which Regeneron obtained from the 2023 acquisition of Decibel Therapeutics for $109 million, works by delivering a functioning copy of the otoferlin gene, one of the main causes of congenital deafness. Regeneron is also advancing another hearing loss therapy, this once focused on GJB2-related deafness.
