Genetic analysis start-up 23andMe, known for its star-studded "spit parties" and a controversial investment from Google, announced Thursday the debut of a new initiative to bring together women who have been affected by breast cancer or who may be genetically at risk.
October is the 23rd annual National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Using its Web-based social network, 23andMe hopes to "reach out to, and build a community around, women who have encountered breast cancer, thereby increasing the scientific understanding of the inherited aspects of a disease that affects 200,000 newly diagnosed individuals per year." Women who purchase the $399 testing kits will have the option to participate in surveys, and the start-up's research arm, called "23andWe," will build a community for the swapping of knowledge, advice, and support.
Representatives from 23andMe said that the project does not yet have any external research organizations as partners, and remains "primarily a social-networking community" at the time. The genetics community has been reluctant to embrace consumer DNA-analysis companies, and the state of California asked 23andMe, along with other companies in the same field, to stop selling tests until they could be fully compliant with health regulations.
At the end of August, 23andMe announced that California authorities had granted it a license to continue selling its tests. In a blog post, 23andMe's founders described the agreement as "only the start of the dialogue between regulators and genomics companies that offer direct-to-consumer services."
This post was updated at 1:04 p.m. PT to clarify the state of 23andMe's negotiations with the state of California.
There are some big new names backing ZocDoc, a start-up that lets you book doctor's appointments online (currently just in New York). Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has contributed an undisclosed amount to the company, as has Bezos Expeditions, the investment firm run by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.
In August, the company announced a $3 million Series A funding round led by Khosla Ventures, the firm created by Sun Microsystems founder Vinod Khosla. The Bezos and Benioff investments are considered contributions to that round.
The New York-based ZocDoc currently employs 12 people and said that there were nearly 20,000 medical appointments available for booking in the month of September.
Khosla Ventures, the venture capital firm launched in 2004 by Sun Microsystems founder Vinod Khosla, has led a $3 million Series A round for ZocDoc, a service for locating and booking doctors' appointments online.
ZocDoc is sort of like a cross between Yelp and Lifebooker--but with its focus on physicals, not facials. Members can search for nearby doctors, filter by insurance plan matches, find out what other members have had to say about them, and book the appointments through the site. Currently, it only serves the New York boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, but has plans to expand nationwide--that's what the funding is for.
"ZocDoc is addressing a real need in health care," Khosla said in a release Monday. He won't be joining the start-up's board of directors, but his partner David Weiden will. "The Internet has the potential to fundamentally improve access to care, and the company has gained initial traction towards this long-term vision," he said in the statement.
Plenty of much bigger names have been getting on the online health care bandwagon, but most of them have been focusing on medical records, not appointment booking.
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