Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

Editor’s Note: In this segment of Medscape One-on-One, Editor-in-Chief Eric J. Topol, MD, talks with Anne E. Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of 23andMe, about her desire to shake up the practice of medicine by using patients’ genetic data to enhance preventive care and disease treatment. Although the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered 23andMe to stop marketing its $99 genetic screening tests to consumers last November, Ms. Wojcicki, a Yale-educated biologist, says her company is pressing on with its mission, having already genetically screened some 650,000 people, including Dr. Topol.

Taking Biology to Wall Street

Eric J. Topol, MD: Hello. I’m Eric Topol, and this is Medscape One-on-One. As we continue our series on some of the most interesting people in the world of medicine, I am thrilled to speak with Anne Wojcicki from 23andMe, who has done a lot to try to shake up the world of medicine and healthcare. It’s great to have you with us. Let’s start with some of your background. You went to college at Yale. After that you went into Wall Street?

Anne E. Wojcicki: I grew up on the Stanford campus [Editor’s note: Ms. Wojcicki’s father, Stanley Wojcicki, is a physicist and professor emeritus at Stanford University] and went to Yale for undergraduate education. I was a biology major, and very haphazardly I got an introduction to a Wall Street firm. I was investing in healthcare companies for 10 years.

Dr. Topol: What was the big lesson out of that decade for you?

Ms. Wojcicki: In the beginning, I loved it because there was all this innovation. My first investment, ironically, was Affymetrix, a genome company. There was this amazing spirit of innovation. Then the bubble burst in 2000 and a lot of innovation dried up. I started to understand more about how the healthcare system worked and to realize that there are all of these great people in the system, but the system was encouraging a type of healthcare that I didn’t want.

Primarily, if I think of what I really want, I want to be healthy at 100 and I don’t want to take any medications. But you are part of a healthcare system where, if you are diabetic, many people can make money, and if you never become diabetic, no one makes money. I just felt that the system wasn’t getting to the issues that I wanted, which were prevention and wellness.

Dr. Topol: You got to that sense with a lot of experience from another perspective — not from the inside but from the outside. How did you go from that to the idea of starting a consumer genomics company?

Involving the Consumer

Ms. Wojcicki: Every year I would see these glossy brochures that talked about personalized medicine. Everyone had these great quotes about how personalized medicine is coming and the genome project was done, but it wasn’t actually happening. More and more I realized that the consumer — you, the individual — can never make choices; everyone is making choices for you. I was doing research on, ironically, Affymetrix and Illumina, so I started and ended my career with that. I remember talking to Steven McCarroll at the Broad Institute, and he was like a kid in a candy store, saying, “It’s the most exciting time. We are finally getting whole genetic data and it’s inexpensive and reliable. It’s going to change the world.” I kept thinking, if you are going to change the world and usher in personalized medicine, and understand the risks and what you are at risk for, and what you are not at risk for, you have to get the consumer involved.

After those discussions I started to realize that there was the potential for marrying inexpensive genetics with the Livestrong/Susan G. Komen kind of enthusiasm and what was happening on YouTube and Facebook. So I put together this community to help people access their genetic data and make it really fun for them. We wanted to do research that involved everyone, [allowing them to contribute their own] information.

Dr. Topol: This was back in 2006, when you founded the company?

Ms. Wojcicki: Correct.