By Dietrich Knauth
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Bankrupt genetic testing company 23andMe told a U.S. bankruptcy judge on Wednesday that it wants to re-open bidding on its assets, including customers’ genetic data, after receiving a $305 million offer from its co-founder Anne Wojcicki.
23andMe had previously selected a $256 million bid from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals as the lead offer after a bankruptcy auction concluded in May.
But it received a later bid from TTAM Research Institute, a new nonprofit founded by Wojcicki, and asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brian Walsh in St. Louis, Missouri, to be allowed to re-engage with potential buyers after determining that TTAM had sufficient financing to proceed with the higher offer.
Regeneron is willing to make a new bid for 23andMe’s assets, but wants a $10 million breakup fee if Wojcicki’s bid is ultimately accepted, its attorney Emil Kleinhaus told the judge.
Kleinhaus said Regeneron still wants to buy 23andMe, but believes that it was unfair for the genetic testing company to seek a “do-over” after its earlier auction.
“The auction was over, the rules were clear,” Kleinhaus said.
South San Francisco, California-based 23andMe filed for bankruptcy in March, seeking to sell its business at auction following a decline in consumer demand and a 2023 data breach that exposed sensitive genetic and personal information of millions of customers.
The bankruptcy sale will include more than 15 million customer DNA profiles, collected via 23andMe’s popular direct-to-consumer saliva-testing kits.
The data breach and subsequent bankruptcy filing have drawn scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers concerned that the company’s genetic data on millions of customers could be sold to unscrupulous buyers.
23andMe had named TTAM as the backup bidder after its earlier auction, valuing its offer at $146 million.
(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Nia Williams)
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