Genetic sequencing opens new doors — and concerns — for home health testing

Illustration by Ana Kova

LetsGetChecked has acquired the genetic testing company Veritas Genetics and spinoff Veritas Intercontinental, it announced Tuesday. It is the latest pivot for a direct-to-consumer genetics company, most of which have spent the past few years struggling to sell DNA test kits to consumers more and more concerned about genetic privacy.

One path forward is partnering with an industry like home testing. If a company is incentivized to push consumers towards tests based on their genetic information, there could be conflicts of interest for patients. With all of these products on board at one company, genetic information should be communicated very carefully.

LetsGetChecked is one of the largest companies under that umbrella, and the company said its revenue grew by 1,500 percent over the last two years. It has a variety of services, including tests for sexually transmitted diseases and cholesterol, as well as integration with a pharmacy service. Adding genetic services lets the company cater to all of a customer's health needs.

George Church founded the company in order to offer cheap full genome sequencing to consumers. The other companies only sequence chunks of DNA linked to information about health conditions or ancestry information, while Veritas only sequence the entire genome. After failing to find investors and suspending operations in the United States, Veritas began looking for buyers to bring it back.

Other genetics companies had the same problems. In early 2020, 23andMe laid off 100 employees, and sales for both 23andMe and Ancestry were down in 2019. Efforts to develop drugs using 23andMe's database of genetic information have shifted focus. GEDMatch, which helped identify the Golden State Killer, was acquired by a crime scene DNA company.

The company had always been more of a personal health company. The acquisition by LetsGetChecked adds to a suite of products that offer consumers information about their health. The genes associated with a range of health conditions, including risk of cancer, risk of cardiac disease, metabolism, cholesterol, hair thickness, and pain sensitivity, are given information by Veritas. The genetics tests and most diagnostic tests are not cleared by the FDA because they are lab-developed.

LetsGetChecked can tell people their genetic risk for a certain condition and then combine that with diagnostic tests for that condition. If people need to be treated, we can provide a pharmacy business.

A bioethicist studying direct-to-consumer genome testing at Loyola University Chicago says that offering diagnostic testing after genetic testing could be helpful.

The vast majority of the genome is like a weather report, according to Mathews. It is not a guarantee that a weather report will start raining in your area. It is possible for genes to say if someone is more or less likely to have a certain health condition, but without a high degree of certainty. If the company giving out the information also sells diagnostic tests and treatments for the same condition, that could be a conflict.

It depends on how the genetic information is presented to customers. Ideally, they would have experts who would help people process and understand their results. Mathews says that there should be clarity on how diagnostic test results are different from genetic test results.

Clear communication becomes more important when there is uncertainty around a test result. In an investigation into blood tests used to find developmental conditions in pregnant people, the test results were often inaccurate, but they were marketed to consumers with language like "total confidence."

A consultation service is available through the testing process, and LetsGetChecked will be adding genetic counselors to its team along with the new service. He says they get that extra support.

The implementation of combining these types of services is dependent on how it is done.

As consumer genetic testing companies shift to new strategies, keeping a close eye on how these partnerships play out is important. Mathews will be watching to see how the genetic data is shared and used by the new companies taking on that work.