Consumer biomarker-testing kits (like 23andme, and the equivalents for whole-genome sequencing, proteomics, microbiome, etc) don't make a ton of practical sense to me as a path towards new medical treatments.
A lot of genetic testing companies go that way anyhow -- testing for loss-of-function mutations in genes with well-established disease associations, and getting covered by insurance. That's a valid business model & useful service, but it isn't discovering novel gene associations.
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What you need, in order to go the discovery route, is to generate large datasets of users' biomarkers, *along* with their health info, and run correlations. But this will be stymied by a.) the small market for "entertainment purposes only" quantified-self stuff,
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and b.) users' inertia or inaccuracy about entering all their medical history info.
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Meanwhile, large (>100,000) biobanks funded by universities, governments, and nonprofits, may be an equally good resource for research discovering new correlations between biomarkers and diseases. Some countries collect data & samples from all their citizens!
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