FLICKR, GLYN LOWEIn November 2013, when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered 23andMe to stop marketing its health-based direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing services, the firm’s marketing ceased, but its aim to provide people with their genetic information didn’t. Now, it’s all about ancestry. The genealogy service that was once considered an add-on to 23andMe’s health-centric genotyping suite has taken center stage, driven in large part by gleaming ads depicting customers who’ve located relatives.
The firm’s two largest competitors in the DTC DNA ancestry testing space, Ancestry.com and Family Tree DNA, have also ramped up their advertising efforts in the last year. And consumers are responding: according to all three firms, business has been growing at a steady pace.
“There’s tremendous interest in ancestry testing,” said Jennifer Wagner, a Pennsylvania-based lawyer. “What we’re seeing right now is more people knowing that these products are out there. Genetic genealogy, as an industry, is valuable—not just for individuals uncovering their ancestry, but also from an educational standpoint.”
Each of the companies markets a variety of services, which are based on proprietary analyses and start at $99. Compared with health-based genetic testing, consumers are generally less wary of privacy risks associated with ...
