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Direct-to-consumer personal genomic tests need better regulation

Increasingly, data are collected by companies that provide direct-to-consumer personal genomic tests, yet the existing health legislation covering the use of these data is lagging far behind in the USA.

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Fig. 1: A brief history of diagnostic test regulation for DTC PGT.
Fig. 2: The market landscape for DTC PGT companies in 2020.

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Authors and Affiliations

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O.M., J.E.M. and J.S.R. conceptualized the manuscript, OM drafted the manuscript, JSR provided supervision, and all authors critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content.

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Correspondence to Joseph S. Ross.

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Competing interests

J.E.M. and J.S.R. receive research support through Yale University from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to establish the Good Pharma Scorecard at Bioethics International. N.D.S. has received research support through Mayo Clinic from the Food and Drug Administration to establish the Yale-Mayo Clinic Center for Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation program (U01FD005938); the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Innovation under the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative; the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R01HS025164, R01HS025402, R03HS025517 and K12HS026379); the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the US National Institutes of Health (R56HL130496, R01HL131535 and R01HL151662); the National Science Foundation; and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute to develop a Clinical Data Research Network (LHSNet). J.S.R. has received research support through Yale University from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation for the Collaboration for Research Integrity and Transparency at Yale; and receives research support through Yale University from Johnson & Johnson to develop methods of clinical trial data sharing, from the Medical Device Innovation Consortium as part of the National Evaluation System for Health Technology, from the Medical Device Innovation Consortium as part of the National Evaluation System for Health Technology (NEST), from the Food and Drug Administration for the Yale–Mayo Clinic Center for Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation program (U01FD005938); from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R01HS022882), and from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the US National Institutes of Health (R01HS025164 and R01HL144644).

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Moneer, O., Miller, J.E., Shah, N.D. et al. Direct-to-consumer personal genomic tests need better regulation. Nat Med 27, 940–943 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01368-9

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