We don t know much about health… It s crazy to me that in this world of electronic medical records, Walmart has so much information about how we shop, but no one has that information about our health. Why can t my doctor say, Wow, Anne, based on your lifestyle and behavior, you re five years from being diabetic. But I can go to Target and they know exactly what I m going to buy.
— Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of personal genetics company 23andMe, on how big data should be used to help health care. Mountain View-based 23andMe recently raised a new round of funding and relaunched a gene-testing product for consumers after working things out with the FDA, which in 2013 ordered the company to stop selling the kits with interpreted health results.
The company also has set its sights on disease research and drug development.
I really want to prove that we can revolutionize drug discovery, in almost a Moneyball kind of moment, Wojcicki said at Fast Company s Innovation Festival in New York this week. Having a human database can give us so much of an edge — we can do it so much faster and so much more inexpensively.
Also this week, Wojcicki spoke with Bloomberg TV s Emily Chang about a couple of other notable topics, including her relationship with ex-husband Google co-founder Sergey Brin, whom she divorced earlier this year: It s complicated. I think divorce is never easy. But, you know, we re very good friends. We see each other almost on a daily basis. And we re really supportive of each other. And I think that that s sort of a new reality of relationships.
She also told Chang she wouldn t sell 23andMe: The idea that the consumer is empowered and that genetic testing is going to be a foundation for health care in the future is just core to my being. I m wedded to this company for the rest of my life. So I m not interested in selling.
Photo: 23andMe co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki. (Dai Sugano/Mercury News archives)
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