23andMe co-founder and former CEO Anne Wojcicki is set to buy back the company after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year. On Friday, 23andMe and TTAM Research Institute, a nonprofit public benefit corporation run by Wojcicki, announced in a press release that TTAM would be buying “substantially all of the Company’s assets” for $305 million.
As of last month, New York-based biotech company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals was set to buy 23andMe for $256 million. But the new purchase agreement with TTAM is “the result of a final round of bidding that occurred earlier today between TTAM and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals,” according to the release. Wojcicki made the “unsolicited offer” earlier this month, according to The Wall Street Journal.
23andMe is well-known for its at-home genome testing kits, and at one point the company was worth about $6 billion, according to CNBC. But it so far has been unable to turn a profit and dealt with a massive data breach in 2023. The company paid $30 million to settle a lawsuit over the breach last year. When 23andMe filed for bankruptcy in March, Wojcicki resigned as CEO.
TTAM will comply with 23andMe’s “privacy policies and applicable law” and has made “binding commitments to adopt additional consumer protections and privacy safeguards,” including establishing a consumer privacy advisory board within 90 days of the close of the deal. The release says the transaction is still subject to court approval but is expected to close “in the coming weeks.”
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