23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki wants to take the struggling company private—then comes the real work

23andMe was going to remake healthcare with its DNA spit tests. Today, it’s languishing on the sidelines. Wojcicki has a long road ahead.

Direct-to-consumer genetic testing pioneer 23andMe unveiled a new product in May. Cofounder and CEO Anne Wojcicki had long promised that 23andMe would democratize genetics and, in the process, unleash a health revolution based on personalized genomic insights. But the company’s newest feature was decidedly more mundane: Through its telehealth service, 23andMe would start writing prescriptions for erectile dysfunction medication.