23andMe receives FDA approval to test for cancer variants

23andMe (ME) shares are rising after the personal genetics company was given FDA approval on testing for cancer variants in customers. Yahoo Finance Live checks out 23andMe's stock action and the benefits it could see from leaning more into the health space.

This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: 23andMe stock, that's rocketing higher after the FDA cleared the company to report an additional 41 genetic variants that increase the risk for breast, ovarian, prostate, and pancreatic cancer.

Now, this marks the company's fourth FDA clearance for genetic cancer risk.

I mean, clearly, this is good news.

I mean, a lot of people were wondering, what was going to be sort of the next evolution that happened with 23andMe?

When they first started, it was about finding out your ancestry and things like that.

Then it became more into the health space.

So this really is a positive move that we're seeing here.

So glad to see that momentum.

And obviously, the more informed we could be about our health, the better.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, for many of us who had used 23andMe to try and figure out what our ancestry was, of course, there's kind of a limited amount of engagements or interactions that you can have with these same consumer.

So how can you create more of that?

Well, for 23andMe, it's certainly looking towards more of the health applications there.

And 23andMe was also granted an FDA predetermined change control plan, allowing the company to update their report with additional variants that you had mentioned provided they meet the same analytical and clinical requirements demonstrated in the current clearance that they did have with regard to the variants for BRCA1, BRCA2, known to be associated with higher risk for breast, ovarian, prostate, and pancreatic cancer.

There you're taking a look today at the move up by about 4%.

Well, coming up.

So-- RACHELLE AKUFFO: And it really does-- BRAD SMITH: Oh, yeah.

Sorry.

Go ahead, Rachelle.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Well, I was just going to say.

It really does speak to this move that we're seeing and also hyper-personalized health care.

Because for certain specific risks that could be hereditary for you or for your family members, this really does open that up.

And we've seen that sort of hyper-personalization.

And it would be interesting to see how that develops from here.

So nice move here from 23andMe.

BRAD SMITH: Absolutely.

And we'll continue to keep a close eye on the shares here today with that price action.