Whole Genome Sequencing Heads for Consumers – Rodrigo Martinez of Veritas Genetics – The Health Care Blog

DNA testing companies like 23andMe and Ancestry have made DNA testing mainstream, with adoption skyrocketing among consumers. Meanwhile, health tech startups like Veritas Genetics are starting to push the trend even further – from genotyping to whole genome sequencing. What’s the difference? Well, genotyping looks at less than half of 1% of your genome, while whole genome sequencing looks at over 99% of your genome.

Veritas is betting that consumers are ready for what’s revealed by looking at more than 6.4 billion letters of DNA and are promising that the value of that information will only get richer as time goes on and the science that makes sense of our genome achieves new breakthroughs.

In fact, Veritas is positioning their $999 test as “a resource for life” and Rodrigo Martinez, their Chief Marketing & Design Officer who I chat with here, shares a vision for the future that includes asking Alexa to scan your genome before taking medications or risking allergic reactions to foods.

This is fascinating proposition for the future of health (investors are jazzed too, having poured $50M into the company), but ethical questions abound. How do you make this information useful and actionable? How do you handle situations where major health issues are reveled? And what about data privacy? This is about as personal as personal health information can get. Rodrigo weighs in…

Source: Thehealthcareblog.com

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