Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said it would acquire 23andMe, which filed for bankruptcy in March and would continue to offer consumer DNA testing services.

The company has signed up to pay $256 million for 23andMe and nearly all of its assets, including its R&D services operations as well as its biobank of collected samples. The deal, which is subject to court approval, does not cover 23andMe’s Lemonaid Health telemedicine and virtual pharmacy business.

How exactly 23andMe will shake out after the Regeneron purchase is to be seen. The company has taken a dramatic fall in recent years, since going public. Hackers accessed the information of 6.9 million people in 2023 and 23andMe laid off over 200 people last year.

Regeneron Pharmaceutical (REGN) is buying 23andMe’s (MEHCQ) genetics business out of bankruptcy for $256 million, aiming to boost its drug discovery capabilities using DNA data. Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Anjalee Khemlani explains how the deal ties into Regeneron’s broader strategy and addresses privacy concerns.

23andMe was founded 19 years ago to provide saliva-based genetic testing of health and ancestry to consumers, going public in 2021. It subsequently branched out into drug development, notably forging an alliance with GSK that has since come to an end.

DB-OTO, which Regeneron obtained from the 2023 acquisition of Decibel Therapeutics for $109 million, works by delivering a functioning copy of the otoferlin gene, one of the main causes of congenital deafness. Regeneron is also advancing another hearing loss therapy, this once focused on GJB2-related deafness.