Days after offering to settle a $30 million data breach lawsuit, 18-year-old genetic testing company 23andMe is now facing another public setback: Seven independent directors of its board resigned on Tuesday in a letter directed at CEO Anne Wojcicki, now a teenager. . the only remaining board member.
The outgoing directors, among them YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and Sequoia VC Roelof Botha, called out Wojcicki for not submitting a “fully funded, fully motivated, and actionable proposal” to take the company private over the past five months. They wrote that their approach to the 23andMe strategy was different from Wojcicki’s.
“Because of that difference and because of your concentrated voting power, we believe it is in the best interest of the Company’s shareholders that we resign from the Board rather than have a long and disturbing difference with you about the direction of the Company,” they said.
Related: 23andMe DNA Technology Helps Family Find Abducted Daughter After 51 Years
Wojcicki, who founded the company in 2006, controls 49% of 23andMe’s voting rights. In July, he filed a proposal to buy back all of his outstanding shares for $0.40 per share and take the company private. A special committee formed by the company rejected his proposal, saying it was not in the interests of the shareholders.
Anne Wojcicki. Credit: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Wojcicki told employees in a memo Tuesday that he was “surprised and disappointed” by the resignation and would begin immediately to find replacement directors. He said “taking 23andMe private will be our best chance for long-term success.”
23andMe, which was worth $6 billion by 2021 shortly after going public, is now trading at 34 cents per share at the time of writing. The company has until November 4 to bring the stock price down to at least $1 per share or risk being delisted.
23andMe has faced a number of public issues, including a data breach in October that affected nearly 7 million accounts and appeared to target people with Chinese or Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Customers filed a class-action lawsuit in January and 23andMe proposed a $30 million settlement earlier this month.
23andMe’s main product is a $99 ancestry kit that requires the customer to submit their saliva to obtain genetic information. The $199 kit advertises health status reports. The company also manufactures the drug in-house and tests it.
Related: 23andMe Hackers Sell Stolen User Data, Including DNA Profiles of ‘Celebrities,’ on the Dark Web
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