In response to a proposed acquisition by a biotechnology firm amidst its precarious financial standing, 23andMe faces litigation from twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia, contesting the company's alleged practice of monetizing individual genetic data without explicit consumer consent, a move viewed as a violation of fiduciary responsibility.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, in a press release, posited that the aforementioned data—encompassing biological specimens, DNA data, health-related characteristics, and medical records—must not be commodified and sold absent explicit and fully informed consent from each individual, a stance particularly salient given the advent of companies like 23andMe, established in 2006, which furnishes customers with saliva-based DNA test kits purportedly facilitating ancestral discovery and the identification of distant relatives.

However, the company, having struggled to establish a viable and consistently profitable business model since its 2021 IPO, was compelled to implement a workforce reduction of 40% in March and subsequently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection; Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, poised to acquire the beleaguered entity for $256 million, has pledged adherence to 23andMe's extant privacy policies and all relevant regulatory frameworks, while an independent consumer privacy ombudsman has been entrusted with the critical task of scrutinizing the proposed acquisition and its potential ramifications for consumer data privacy.