Richard Bran­son takes 23andMe pub­lic with his SPAC, as the Glax­o­SmithK­line part­ner aims to beef up drug R&D

One of the buzzi­est names in health­care and de­liv­er­ing per­son­al­ized med­i­cine di­rect­ly based on a cus­tomer’s ge­net­ics went pub­lic Thurs­day, and used a high-pro­file bil­lion­aire’s SPAC to do it.

23andMe pulled off a re­verse merg­er with Richard Bran­son’s VG Ac­qui­si­tion Corp, the com­pa­ny an­nounced Thurs­day morn­ing. The deal will de­liv­er $759 mil­lion in fund­ing via $509 mil­lion in cash and a $250 pri­vate place­ment, and val­ues the com­pa­ny at $3.5 bil­lion.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER