In a blatantly obvious, why the hell werent they doing that in the first place? move.
23andSerge acknolwedges, finally, that they ARE Providing clinically important work. Duh,
Since the website won't let me copy the presser, I will quote, with my own translation through business BS speak.
"23andMe customers now have the option to speak with a board certified genetic counselor"
-Translation, we realized that by testing BRCA mutations we put people at risk and needed some back up from someone who knows what the FCUK they are doing opposed to a VC billionaire babe and ruby on rails programmer kids.
-Because, frankly, we don't want to get sued or go to jail......Like Liz Dragon......
"We chose Informed because they were the leading independent genetic counseling provider"
-Translation, we alienated/pissed off the entire rest of the FCUKING community by saying they were stupid. Thus these were the only guys who would work with a company getting ready to be pilloried by Congress
IMHO, Informed are a great service, we are modeling genetichub after them, but... No one else would work with them on this. NO ONE, or so I am told......
"We wanted to be sure that the information our customers receive would be completely objective"
-Translation: We didn't want to have egg on our face when the geneticists said, "Well Andre, that finding essentially means nothing to your long term health and happiness"
"Customers who want a more thorough review of their family and medical histories can chose the Comprehensive Clinical Genetic Counseling"
-Translation: Yes we know we have been pushing this "It's not clinical" thing, but let's face it, no one is buying it. So we said Clinical, yes we did. See Henry, we are trying Congressman. See. Please no pre-market review.
The Sherpa Says: Well 23andMe, I am proud you came around. Too bad it only took an FDA review and being called to testify before congress before you "acted" in the best interests of your customers. 3 years later and I can say it. I told you so......
5 comments:
I don't see how this is any change. It seems to me to be an ordinary business development announcement.
That is: the option to "speak" with a medical expert has never been excluded, and the terms of service remain the same, and this announcement doesn't seem to change anything to me.
I would be careful about continuing to call down Sergey Brin about this company. Listen dude, the Brins pulled their money. You don't call a $2 million dollar loan to your own company while raising additional capital to be a nice guy. As far as you or anybody else knows, nobody is more hostile to 23andMe than Sergey Brin ---or for that matter, Anne Wojcicki.
Regardless, this is gossip. Come one.
Why are MD's being so hostile about PM?
Is it a perceived "Turf War" for customers? Or does it embarrass them to have a potential patient that has good knowledge about his condition?
Many years ago, Doctors used to act very pleased when I would provide information that would help them diagnose me.
While the last time (2 years ago) I went to a MD (and that probably will be the last time I will ever bother to go see an MD until they get straightened out) the knuckle dragger virtually threw me out of his office for showing him a printout with important information about my problem that I had found on the Internet.
After ranting until he was purple in the face about "The crap from morons on the Internet thinking they knew more than he, the Omniscient MD, did, and me being an idiot for even reading such garbage that contradicted what he, the Infallable MD, was telling me, I quietly asked him to please move his thumb from the printout I had given him, where it showed the source as being the Mayo Clinic.
So what's up?
Wow, it only took a couple weeks to get a business collaboration off the ground and launched to the public? That is super fast! If only all companies could have that kind of turnaround!
In reality, I doubt that this genetic counseling deal was done in response to the congressional investigation, given the timeline. These things usually take more time than people think.
What's the new business that was started. This is one business offering services through another business. And this is an established clinical service who Insurers have used.
Hell, this one coulda been done overnight.
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