23andMe Sells Gene-Testing Business to DNA Drug Maker Regeneron

Sale Price and Data Value

• Commenters note the sale price (~$256M for ~15M samples, ~$17/person) as surprisingly low given the sensitivity of the data.
• Some see this as “a steal”; others argue the low price suggests limited near‑term ability to legally monetize or abuse the data.
• Debate over whether markets are correctly pricing long‑term value; some compare to how web data later powered AI models.

Consent, Expectations, and User Attitudes

• Disagreement over whether users “should have known” their DNA would be monetized; many believe the average person did not anticipate a sale like this.
• Some say users explicitly consented to research use; others argue “research” consent is not understood as “sell my data to any buyer.”
• Several note that many people simply don’t care about data privacy or are too burdened by everyday problems to prioritize it.

Privacy, Ethics, and Potential Harms

• Fears include: employment or insurance discrimination, a “GATTACA”‑style world, misuse by law enforcement, targeted surveillance, exposure of family secrets, and even speculative genetic weapons.
• Strong moral criticism of treating DNA as a commodity; comparisons to trading people rather than just data.
• Some emphasize risk even when models are bad: discrimination based on flawed polygenic risk scores can still harm people.

Law, Regulation, and Ownership

• Many express surprise there aren’t strong laws treating this as protected personal or medical information.
• Clarification that HIPAA doesn’t cover 23andMe‑type companies and generally protects institutions more than individuals.
• Calls for rules where data is deleted by default on acquisition unless users actively opt in to transfer; some foresee or hope for lawsuits, others fear the current Supreme Court might weaken privacy further.

Research and “Best Possible Outcome” Views

• A minority frame Regeneron as a relatively good outcome compared with worse pharma and data brokers; they expect drug discovery benefits.
• Others counter that if privacy really mattered, consent would be re‑collected and non‑consenting data purged.
• Some genetic genealogists lament that family‑matching features were already degraded and see this sale as further indication those use cases are secondary to pharma value.

Alternatives and “Safer” Testing

• Practitioners in the field say there’s effectively no truly privacy‑preserving commercial option; every company they’ve seen eventually shares data or cooperates with law enforcement.
• A few niche options like ySeq are mentioned as closer to “sequence, send you raw data, delete,” but with caveats (cost, wait times, limited demand).
• Several propose a market opportunity for a premium, privacy‑first service that does one‑time sequencing and guaranteed deletion, though demand is questioned.

Broader Surveillance and Structural Issues

• Concerns extend beyond 23andMe: fingerprints, facial recognition, government programs, and consumer devices are cited as normalizing biometric surveillance.
• Some argue this outcome is inevitable in a system where anything not explicitly illegal is allowed, and where one‑time‑fee services with perpetual data storage are economically unsustainable.