23andMe files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as co-founder and CEO Wojcicki resigns

The institution said Sunday that it volition look to merchantability “substantially each of its assets” done a court-approved reorganization plan.

The San Francisco-based institution besides said Anne Wojcicki had resigned arsenic CEO effectual instantly but would stay connected the company’s board. Her resignation comes a mates weeks aft a committee committee had rejected a nonbinding acquisition connection from Wojcicki.

Shares of 23andMe Holding Co., which person shed astir each their worth since past spring, plunged beneath $1 successful premarket trading Monday.

The voluntary bankruptcy filing caps months of turmoil for the company, which has struggled to find a profitable concern exemplary since going nationalist successful 2021.

Last September, each of its autarkic directors resigned successful a uncommon determination pursuing negotiations with Wojcicki, who had been trying to instrumentality the institution private.

The institution past announced successful November that it would laic disconnected 40% of its workforce, oregon much than 200 employees, and discontinue its therapeutics division.

In January, the board’s peculiar committee said it was exploring strategical alternatives, including a imaginable sale.

Board Chair Mark Jensen said successful a connection Sunday that the institution has determined that a court-supervised merchantability was “the champion way guardant to maximize the worth of the business.” He said they besides expect it to assistance the company’s efforts to chopped costs and besides resoluteness ineligible and leasehold liabilities.

Jensen besides said, “We are committed to continuing to safeguard lawsuit information and being transparent astir the absorption of idiosyncratic information going forward, and information privateness volition beryllium an important information successful immoderate imaginable transaction.”

23andMe plans to proceed operating its concern and has $35 cardinal successful debtor-in-possession financing from JMB Capital Partners.