emily: she founded a genetic testing company on one big idea, to create a dna database that could move science forward. it could cure deadly diseases. in 2030 teen, the fda yanked 23 products off the market. anne wojcicki had to face a republic divorce from her husband, sergey brin. she has made a remarkable comeback with a first fda approved consumer product.

joining me today is anne wojcicki. emily: it's so great to have you here. the last two years have been crazy. it could have been disastrous for the company. now you are back on good terms. how do you feel right now? anne: i feel great. i am proud of the company and what we have accomplished. when you have to slog through an picture had down and there is a lot of work ahead of you and you're not going to see a reward for a couple of years, it's hard. i feel like we just climbed the first flight of stairs, but we're still climbing the empire state building. there is a lot more to go. we are back on the market. we have an incredible product. we have redesigned everything. this is the first chapter and a whole new book for 23andme.

emily: you have the first fda approved consumer genetic test. anne: consumers can buy things without having to go through a counselor or a physician. they can buy them directly from 23andme and get that information. emily: this test for things like recessive genes. things you could pass on to your children. anne: there are things like your eye color. that teaches people about genetics and caffeine metabolism. that's really interesting. emily: i would like for you to take me back to that day when you thought that letter from the fda. anne: we were at an off-site planning for the future. we were all in great moods. get hired a great number of people.

we had a lot of people that had started that week. what we learned is how much there was a disconnect because of what we thought we were doing and what the fda needed us to do. emily: did you think you could lose the company? anne: it took a while to understand. there were six weeks where we talked to a number of lawyers. we talked to the fda. it became clear that there were not -- there was no easy option forward. emily: did you consider selling? anne: the idea that genetic testing will be a foundation for health care in the future was core to my being. i am wedded to this company for the rest of my life and i was not interested in selling. i was not interested in closing up shop in saying this is too hard. we need to refocus. we need to hire the right people. we have a major miscommunication.

we need to make sure we are executing the right way. emily: it was an arduous process. you hired people who could better interact with washington. how did you get there? anne: i the phone and called everyone i knew and said one of the right lawyers to talk to in d.c.? who should i talk to? how can we figure out the past moving forward? she understood genetics. she understood the fda and added a level of structure to the company. emily: there is so much more you want to accomplish. the test for breast cancer and alzheimer's, those of not been approved. anne: that is the top my priority list. customers really want those results. we are talking to the fda about what that path will look like to move forward. i don't have any updates.

emily: you wanted to give customers information to their own data. you have one million customers. is this the biggest dna database out there? anne: it's the biggest being used for research. what's exciting for me about what we were trying to do is the hypothesis that if we have the world's health care data and all this genetic information, everything about what you eat and exercise and your medical condition and what you respond to, we are going to understand patterns and understand the genetic basis of disease and understand the basis for why you might despond to a therapy or why you don't. i walk into the physician and they say based on the data you have given us, you are a couple of years away from being diabetic. that's my hope.

you can actually have so much data and understand your predisposed risks that you can make conscious choices about what you are doing on a daily basis to mitigate those risks. emily: he has been a critical part of your story. you are divorced and you have two kids and two companies. how you go through a process like that? ♪

emily: your dad is a physics professor and your mom was an educator. tell me about your ringing. anne: it's interesting. i grew up next to people who did not do things for money. they did things because they loved it and things that they were interested in. the idea that you question all the time, that is core to me.

emily: your sisters are successful. how'd you all relate to each other? anne: we see each other a lot. nothing has changed. my sisters are still my sisters. when they come for dinner, they steal my close, especially my sister susan. we see each other and events all the time. it's fun. emily: was is it about your family that raised three very successful daughters in different disciplines? anne: we take feedback very well. there are few things people can say to me that would insult me or i would take offense at. we became relatively confident in ourselves. none of us do things for the money. we do things that we are

passionate about. emily: you went to gail and majored in biology. you were also a competitive figure skater and hockey player? you went into health investing. anne: i got a job offer on wall street and i originally said no to the job. i called them back and said babysitting is not that interesting. emily: how to do go from wall street to silicon valley? anne: i was understanding how the health system worked. the more i dug into it, the more a record dies how much it's a business. i went to one business in 2005. there were 1000 people working on how they could maximize the filling out comes the patient's so they could take him as much money as possible.

the system is never going to change. that was me throwing in the towel. i believe there is such potential, the health-care system i am investing and is not the one i want. it was all about start of movement. the consumer has a voice. emily: at a certain point you meant sergey brin. anne: they started google in my sister's house. i could not avoid him because he was always there. we would be washing dishes and see them in the other room. they were just there. i used to hang out at google all the time. there was free food and it was fun. i got to know sergey. emily: but does not like? anne: i think sergey and larry, they did not started as they wanted money.

they had the dream of having a world of information on their laptop. they could have sold the company and then professors and life would've been good as well. i would complain to larry about the health care space and how much i felt like it was dysfunctional. you're either part of the solution or part of the problem. that was very much them. fix it. emily: he was predisposed to parkinson's disease. that became a critical part of the story of 23andme and how you communicated what you were trying to achieve. anne: it came out just around the time that we were starting 23andme. we were talking about getting him tested. i was talked out of it. they told me, what would you do with the information?

i found that really offensive. how dare you tell me what information is valuable for me. it was convenient that we had a spectacular science team. they put the mutations we were looking for on the chip. i was looking at the kitchen table. i called one of the scientist. his mom has two copies, is that what this means? they had not seen a lot of people that had two copies of that mutation and he had one. that catapulted us onto a new journey of p and involved with michael j fox and starting the 23andme parkinson's committee. emily: you have found new aspects of parkinson's. anne: we made some headway on parkinson. we have some projects we are thinking about doing.

we are understanding the genetic dictations that sergey has. we are talking about some of the things we need to do. emily: sergey has been a critical part of your story. your divorced. you have two kids and two companies. when there is so much wealth involved, how do you go through this process? anne: it's complicated. divorce is never easy. we are very good friends. we see each other almost on a daily basis. we are supportive of each other. it's the new reality for relationship. emily: do you have any advice from this time of your life? anne: you just have to accept that you do the best you can.

we just need, we just needed the ice cream. there are moments when it's hard. you do the best that you can do. part of it is being gentle on yourself. you can't do everything. part of what i think we have done really well, you optimize finding the best in everyone and focus on the friendship. emily: you live in the silicon valley. you seem so normal. how do you stay normal? anne: you stay focused on the things that are important. i volunteer at school. i make sure that the kids do their homework. i see my family all the time. i still see all of my friends. emily: you have this issue with women and technology. how much progress have you seen and how much needs to be done? anne: there is an imbalance and it needs to change. it's a 10 year issue.

i think we are also getting ethnic diversity. you don't have to be the best at something in order to have an impact area everyone is really good at something. it's important that women know what kind of roles they can have. one of the parts of my job is not to be intimidated. there are men and women and then you try to work with the men and women. they can be people that you don't want to work with. try to find those people who are going to support you. emily: what do you think about the situation that is an old and unfolding? ♪

emily: i do want to talk about your dealings with the fda. what do you think about elizabeth holmes? anne: i have spent a lot of time with her. i have a lot of respect or her

mission in. i have stayed out of knowing the details of it. i think health care is changing quite a bit. people are always going to be skeptical. the onus is on us to be very transparent. emily: i understand what she is trying to do. after 12 years, should it be more involved at this point? anne: i can walk into any center and i don't need a physician. i can just get my information. i think people just want to see and understand the technology and understand the data. people are making life-and-death calls based on this data. they want to understand the why. emily: this is a $10 billion company. do you think it's a fraud? anne: i'm sure it's possible. everything i know, she works incredibly hard.

i have seen her discipline and how much she is working. i'm not close enough to the company to know about the tech knowledge he. it's what everybody wants to know. everybody is excited about the potential and what that technology actually is. emily: how you walk that line between your trade secrets and being transparent? anne: she is not required to have the transparency people are asking for. that's part of the disconnect. the fda has put out guidance, they are trying to regulate the industry. if that is the call they are making, it will be good to have that same transparency across all diagnostics. when you are in a crisis, it's hard to ever evaluate. you guys are all digging in. when you are executing and you have more approvals, the things will speak to the reality.

right now, there is a lot of discussion. emily: let's talk about the future 23andme. how is the drug invention program going? anne: i love it. i am excited about it. for people who have a disease, parkinson's is obviously one. any of these autoimmune diseases, if we can use this data to translate that into something meaningful, that's ace tactile or reward for our customers. emily: i know you are doing a lot of work on lupus. anne: we are working on lupus with pfizer. lupus and inflammatory owl disease and parkinson's, we are about to launch a few others. emily: are you going to do human

testing yourself here? anne: it will be asked best if we come to them with a target. there will be a compound with some clinical background, some data about how that's functioning. there is a higher likelihood of success if we can come with that level of information and move that forward. emily: you would do human testing here? anne: we would start doing some of our own clinical research for sure. emily: there is ancestry, they do some similar things. do you see google and calico as competition? anne: everything here is based on in gauging the consumer and making engaging products for them. calico is focused on anti-aging. i wish these companies well. i think it will expand the

entire industry. i want to translate this information into useful therapeutics. i want to come and say we developed the cure for lupus. when i think about my success moment, it will be when we have that kind of care that game because millions of people shared their data. we were able to create something. that to me is great. emily: any plans to go public? anne: i am not opposed to it at some point, it's a matter of finding the right time. we will definitely figure that out. emily: is there anything you would of done differently? anne: we hired andy page. the almost hired him five years earlier, we should have. we would've been much better.

there would have been easier business models than what we chose to do. we believe in what we are doing and it's going to have a massive impact on society. when we started the company, we had the lone voice. it would echo. the fact that it's their, it's happening and i see the world where like 1996 when the internet was just starting, this is virgin territory. it's all starting to sprout up. i think there can be this consumer health care world that is just spectacular and creates something parallel to the existing world. it's complementary, but it reflects what the actually want for our health care. emily: thank you so much for joining me. anne: thanks to you.

♪ francine: welcome to leaders with lacqua. pearson is an international publishing company with its biggest businesses in education and books. earlier this year, pearson sold two of its most well known brands. in an exclusive interview, i speak with the group's ceo, john fallon, about the impact of selling those established brands. thank you for speaking to bloomberg. we have been talking about the sale for as long as i can remember. when did you decide it was for sale?