[ralston]

Bingo.

> "maximize shareholder value"

> "utilizing its assets to their full revenue potential."

That's quite literally all that needs to be said here. How people fail to see the downside(s) to a large, multi-national, for-profit, shareholder-value-maximizing corporation, having access to (quite literally) their most sensitive information is simply beyond me. What do people expect GSK to say? "We plan to immediately redistribute this data to generate revenue - oh, and we do plan to do some research as well." GSK is not a charity. They do not run on merit, or "doing good things". They run on making - money. Any revenues from any type of wonder drugs developed via this 23&M partnership will be so far down the line (years, if they even come up with any winners). So in the mean time you can bet that they plan to get their ROI from this _investment_ via some type less than morally reputable activity.

[cloverich]

Do you have some examples? I'm not super well informed but 300M seems like a pretty small investment, given a single drug could cost >500M to produce and yield 10B+ in _yearly_ revenue. I'm not claiming one's genetic data is perfectly safe with any company, but that a for profit drug company would use it primarily for drug research seems reasonably sound. In some aspects, I'd expect they'd even have a vested interest in keeping it secure from other drug companies.

[guiambros]

Couldn't agree more. As someone who has his genetic profile with 23andme (as well as my kids, wife, parents, etc), I'm actually looking forward to someone like GSK to come in and use my genetic data to accelerate the discovery of new drugs.

It's shocking that so much genetic data is available, and we're barely scratching the surface, and using for fancy graphs and genealogy trees. We could be finding the cure for real diseases, and improving the lives of millions of people.

Yes, of course the pharma companies will milk the new drugs for the next couple of decades, until they lose the patent, yadda yadda, but at least we're making progress faster. Much better than the alternative - which is to wait decades for the discovery, AND wait more decades for the patents to expire...

Regarding privacy concerns, that's the least of my worries. The money available selling my genetic data (to, say, insurance companies), and the scrutiny and regulation they'd face (in many cases it'd be outright illegal - e.g., minors) is so massive that it'd be stupid to even try. There's a lot more money to be made from the exact same insurance companies by selling overpriced drugs to sick patients with health insurance.

[ralston]

> As someone who has his genetic profile with 23andme (as well as my kids, wife, parents, etc)

Well there it is. You couldn't have an objective discussion about this, even if you wanted to. You (and your family) have already gone through the process. So of course you're extremely hopeful/optimistic that this works out with no problems ;)

[cloverich]

Vested interest doesn't preclude objective discussion, it just makes it more difficult and more likely to be one-sided. In this case OP argues that the companies most financially lucrative position is to use the data in a way that benefits both the company and society. That stands as a strong argument against the parent comments, regardless of the underlying motivations.