Genomics experts say this is a sign that clinical laboratory genetics testing is maturing into a powerful tool for population health

Faced with lagging sales and employee layoffs, genomics companies in the genealogy DNA testing market are shifting their focus to the healthcare aspects of the consumer genomics data they’ve compiled and aggregated.

Recent analysis of the sales of genetic tests from Ancestry and 23andMe show the market is definitely cooling, and the analysts speculate that—independent of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer behavior—the two clinical laboratory genetic testing companies may already have done testing for the majority of consumers who want to buy these tests.

“I think the consumer market is going to become more integrated into the healthcare experience,” Joe Grzymski, PhD, told GenomeWeb. “Whether that occurs through your primary care doctor, your large integrated health network, or your payor, I think there will be profound changes in society’s tolerance for using genetics for prevention.”

Grzymski is Chief Scientific Officer at Renown Health; Associate Research Professor of Computational Biology at Desert Research Institute, a research campus of the University of Nevada Reno; and Principal Investigator on a large population study called the Healthy Nevada Project.

Layoffs at Genomics Companies Come as No Surprise

In February, Ancestry, the largest company in the home DNA testing space, announced it was laying off 6% of its workforce or approximately 100 people, across different departments due to a decline in sales, CNBC reported. Several weeks earlier, 23andMe, the second largest company in this market, also announced it was laying off about 100 people or 14% of its workforce…