23과 나의 고군분투: 스타덤에서 나스닥 상장 폐지까지: 23과 나의 고군분투

### 23과 나의 흥망성쇠: 유전자 검사 선구자에서 나스닥 상장 도전까지
* 한때 60억 달러의 가치를 가졌던 23앤미는 현재 주가가 **1달러 이하**로 떨어지면서 나스닥에서 상장 폐지될 위기에 처해 있으며, **11월까지 실행 계획**을 마련해야 하는 시한이 다가오고 있습니다.
* 📉 2006년 앤 워치키 등이 설립한 이 회사는 저렴한 DNA 검사를 통해 유전자 정보에 대한 접근성을 대중화하는 것을 목표로 **2015년까지 상당한 초기 성공**을 거두며 **FDA 승인을 획득**했습니다.
* 🎉 이 회사는 **2008년 뉴욕 패션위크 기간 동안 '침 뱉기 파티'와 같은 마케팅 전략**으로 인기를 얻었고, **2016년에는 키트 가격을 99달러로 낮춰 수백만 명의 고객**을 유치했습니다.
* 🔍 그러나 유전자 데이터와 관련된 유명 사건 이후 개인정보 보호 문제가 불거졌고, 지속 가능한 비즈니스 모델을 찾는 데 어려움을 겪으면서 **2019년 매출이 46% 급감**해 감원으로 이어졌습니다.
* 💔 23앤미는 치료 분야로 전환하려는 야심에도 불구하고 **2023 회계연도에 3억 1,200만 달러의 손실**을 기록했으며, **2023년 9월에는 약 700만 명의 사용자에게 영향을 미치는 데이터 유출 사고**에 직면했습니다.
* 📅 **9월 중순까지 모든 이사회 멤버가 보이치키의 리더십에 대한 불만으로 사임**했고, 회사는 **전략적 전환의 시급성을 강조하는 나스닥 경고**를 또 한 번 받았습니다.
* 🔄 보이치키는 회사를 비공식으로 전환할 것을 제안했지만 계획이 거부되었고, 회사는 **주가 안정을 위해 역주식 분할**을 발표했습니다.
* 🗣 불확실성이 다가옴에 따라 보이치키는 **새로운 사외이사를 찾는 데 전념**하고 있으며, 지속적인 어려움 속에서도 **고객 유전자 데이터는 기밀**로 유지될 것이라고 주장하고 있습니다.

23앤미는 재정적 손실과 개인정보 보호 문제로 어려움을 겪으면서 나스닥에서 상장 폐지될 위기에 처해 있으며, 이로 인해 회사의 미래가 위험에 처해 있습니다.

23 and Me on the verge of getting delisted from the Nasdaq. Drama has been unfolding this week. It's only set to ramp up. 23 me built a multi-billion dollar brand off of collecting people's spit. The idea was that people could take control of their health by learning about their genetics. And it took off. But just two years after going public, the company went from being valued at $6 billion to trading below $1. Now 23 and Me is rapidly approaching a November deadline to propose an action plan or be delisted from the Nasdaq. So how did one of the most disruptive startups of the 2000s go from Silicon Valley stardom to a penny stock? And can its CEO save the company from collapse? 23 and Me was founded in 2006 by Anne Wojcicki, Linda Avey, and Paul Cusenza. The mission of the company was pretty straightforward.

They set out to give consumers an easy and inexpensive way to access their genetic information. So, they did this by developing a DNA test that you can really kind of take from anywhere. It's an online test. You go online, you order it, we send you a little tube, you spit in the tube, you send it back to us, we extract the DNA out of that, and then we look at a million data points in your DNA. And from that, we can tell you a ton of information about your health and also about your ancestry today. This isn't all that different from competitors like ancestry and Family Tree DNA, but 23 and Me was one of the first to bring genetic testing directly to consumers at an affordable price. By 2012, the company was able to lower the cost of its kit from $999 to $299. This was thanks to capital from high-profile backers.

One of them was Wojcicki's then partner, Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Anne is a really connected person in Silicon Valley, and she understood how to leverage star power in a way that would also help to build 23 and Me brand. So in 2008, for instance, the company famously held what they called a spit party. So during New York Fashion Week, a bunch of celebrities and high-profile guests came and gave a saliva sample, generated a ton of buzz and attention around the company. Sales started booming. The company announced it had Genotyped 1 million customers, and in 2015, the company gained FDA approval to provide more in-depth health information to customers, and in 2016, it finally lowered the price of its kits to $99. I think that. Every technology, it takes a while for adoption. Now it's suddenly become relatively normal. People share their stories online.

I just took a DNA test. Celebrity endorsements kept pouring in, and the company was named one of CNBC's top disruptors of 2018. And thanks so much for joining us here today. Congrats on your spot on the list in the top ten, no less. And during this period, 23 and Me was quietly building a massive database of genetic information. You may wonder what happens to all that genetic data that people send in to the company. Well, the Silicon Valley giant now has the world's largest database for genetic research. 4 million customers have given them permission to use their DNA to study genetic diseases. The company partnered with several pharmaceutical companies and universities to study genetic links in diseases like depression. But customers began to raise concerns around privacy in 2018. A serial killer cold case was solved using DNA from 23 and Me. The company had also started to face

problems with recurring revenue. There hasn't been a sustainable business model. It's the kind of test that you take. Once sales of 23 and Me test kits declined 46% in 2019 compared to a year earlier. The company laid off 100 employees in an effort to cut costs, but Wojcicki still hoped to move the company beyond selling DNA tests. And so now we're really at a point in time where I'm ready to, you know, explode like there's huge opportunities on therapeutics and huge opportunities for our consumer business. So 23 and Me wanted to leverage this genetic database that it had accumulated because, you know, millions of people are taking this test. They have a lot of valuable data. But the fact of the matter is that therapeutics, drug development, drug discovery, it's just really hard.

And extremely expensive. One recent study estimates that drug development in the US can range anywhere from $314 million to $4.46 billion, and can take years to reach patients. Wojcicki's solution was to take a bet on the public market. 23 and Me going public today through a merger with Richard Branson's SPAC, VG Acquisition Corp. In 2021, 23 and Me went public on the Nasdaq and was valued around $3.5 billion. At the time, there was a boom in SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies when 23 and Me went public in 2021. The coronavirus pandemic is in full swing and the market is booming. So healthcare companies, tech companies, they're raising money really, really quickly at really high valuations. A lot of founders who I talked to at this time like to joke that it's like money is free during this

period. Going public helped fuel research and development efforts despite falling sales. I have this incredible drug discovery team and platform. I have over 40 programs underway, and I want to scale all of it. So, I imagine us in the future, ten years from now, a very robust consumer business and a very robust therapeutic side. So, we absolutely aspire to be a full-fledged therapeutic development company that is going to bring those programs to our customers. But by 2022, interest rates had begun to rise, and the company was struggling to raise enough money to fund its research and development. The company ended the fiscal 2023 year at a $312 million loss. All of those ambitions were there. She was trying to create some recurring revenue by a subscription model where users could tap into the more data that they got, and that data is really powerful. But there was always this problem.

She couldn't really sell it. And it turns out, surprise, surprise, that health care, that drug development, is really hard to do. In September of 2023, the share price slid below $1, and the company received a deficiency letter from the Nasdaq. Then the privacy concerns returned. Genetic testing company 23 and Me says hackers accessed the data of nearly 7 million people during an attack in October. That total far more than previously acknowledged accessing user data, including genetic profiles. By 2024, the company announced it was shuttering its drug development team and instead focusing on money-making obesity drugs via telehealth. Its most recent earnings report shows a net loss of $667 million. In March, 23 and Me established a special committee of independent directors to help Wojcicki figure out a path forward for the company to boost its share price.

And it's important to note here that Anne is on the board of 23 and Me, but she was not involved with this special committee in April and signals to the special committee that she's going to submit a proposal to try to take the company private. Unfortunately for her, the very next day, the special committee rejects this proposal. The committee gave Wojcicki until September to offer a revised proposal, but they never received one. Wojcicki wants to take back control of her company three years after going public via Spac, and she's rejecting outside consultants. Now she's abandoned by her board. By mid-September, all seven board members resigned, citing frustration with Wojcicki's strategic differences and concentrated voting power. Then the company received yet another warning letter from the Nasdaq saying that Wojcicki needs to come up

with an action plan before November 4th. It certainly is a big question mark as to exactly what will happen next, but a lot of it feels really up to Anne at this point. She, in a memo to employees in September, said she's going to immediately start looking for new independent directors to join the board. Wojcicki has said in a memo to the SEC that she intends to take the company private and is not interested in third-party bids. In October, the company also announced a reverse stock split in an effort to boost its share price. As for what will happen to the customer genetic data if the company is sold? CNBC reached out to 23 and Me for comment, and a spokesperson emailed back saying that the company remains committed to going private and that it will not share customer data with third parties without their consent.

What Happened To 23andMe?

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23앤미는 60억 달러의 기업 가치에서 불과 2년 만에 1달러 이하로 급락한 후 나스닥에서 상장 폐지될 위기에 처해 있습니다.

간단한 침 샘플을 통해 저렴한 유전자 검사를 제공하는 이 회사의 독특한 비즈니스 모델이 초기에 성공을 이끌었습니다.

2006년 앤 보이치키, 린다 에이비, 폴 쿠센자가 설립한 23앤미는 소비자들에게 유전자 정보를 제공하는 것을 목표로 했지만, 11월 마감 기한 전까지 실행 가능한 실행 계획을 제시하는 데 어려움을 겪고 있습니다.

앤 보이치키가 23andMe의 성공에 미친 영향

앤 보이치키는 실리콘밸리의 인맥을 활용해 2008년 뉴욕 패션위크에서 '침 뱉기 파티'를 개최한 것으로 유명한 스타의 힘을 빌려 23andMe의 브랜드를 구축했습니다.

이 회사는 2015년까지 100만 명의 고객을 대상으로 유전자형을 분석하고 심층적인 건강 정보에 대한 FDA 승인을 받는 등 빠르게 성장했습니다.

하지만 2018년 이 회사의 DNA 데이터를 이용한 미제사건이 해결된 후 개인정보 보호에 대한 우려가 제기되었고, 이에 대한 조사가 강화되었습니다.

23 and Me는 지속 가능한 비즈니스 모델에 어려움을 겪으며 2019년에 테스트 키트 매출이 46% 감소했고, 결국 직원 해고로 이어졌습니다.

이 회사는 유전자 데이터베이스를 활용하여 치료제와 소비자 비즈니스 성장을 목표로 했지만, 신약 개발은 어렵고 비용이 많이 드는 것으로 판명되었습니다.

23 앤 미는 팬데믹 기간 동안 호황을 누린 시장의 덕을 톡톡히 본 리처드 브랜슨의 스팩과 합병을 통해 2021년에 상장했습니다.

23andMe의 도전: 야심찬 신약 개발에서 원격 의료까지

23andMe는 신약 개발 프로그램을 확장하려 했지만 재정적으로 어려움을 겪으며 2023 회계연도에 3억 1,200만 달러의 손실을 기록했습니다.

2023년 9월에는 주가가 1달러 아래로 떨어지면서 나스닥으로부터 투자 경고장을 받았고, 데이터 유출로 인해 약 700만 명의 사용자가 영향을 받은 후 개인정보 보호 문제에 직면했습니다.

2024년에 23andMe는 원격 의료 및 비만 치료제로 초점을 전환하여 신약 개발 팀을 폐쇄하고 6억 6,700만 달러의 순손실을 보고했습니다.

앤 보이치키의 23살과 나의 고군분투기

23과 나의 이사회 멤버인 Anne Wojcicki는 회사를 비공식으로 전환할 것을 제안했지만 특별위원회에서 거부당했습니다.

9월 중순까지 7명의 이사회 멤버 전원이 Wojcicki의 리더십에 대한 불만으로 사임했습니다.

회사는 나스닥의 경고를 받고 역주식 분할을 발표했으며, 보이치츠키는 새로운 사외이사를 영입하고 고객 유전자 데이터를 제3자와 공유하지 않겠다고 약속했습니다.