Predictions for the future of consumer genomics

A recent article in MedCity News outlines the past, present, and future of genome testing being sold to consumers.  The cost of sequencing an entire genome has fallen from $3 billion to $1,000 in a decade, and companies are now offering "personal genome service" for as little as $99.  Over 13% of respondents in a UBS survey said they had taken a genomics test, and of those who had not, 25% said they plan to in the next 12 months.  The UBS study predicted a market size of $2-7 billion dollars for direct-to-consumer "genome services" in 2018.  However, the number of companies offering these services may have outgrown the market, and companies like Invitae, the so-called "Amazon of Medical Genetics" are aggregating a large number of tests into a single platform.

For these reasons, the author predicts that expansion to the clinical and insurance markets will occur in 2018.  Pre-natal genomic screening is far less invasive than an amniocentesis, and more and more patients are electing for it.  In the insurance market, Prenetics is a genome service partnering with Manulife, Prudential, and HSBC (Asia).  The insurance market tests focus on diet, fitness, disease risk and drug efficacy as opposed to the ancestry focused personal tests.  They can be used by insurance companies to separate policy-holders by risk category.

Have you taken a genome test from 23andMe, Ancestry or the like?  Would you?  Would you elect for pre-natal genome screening?  Would you buy health insurance from a company that would require genome sequencing in their evaluation?

See the article here for more information and predictions.