23andMe revamps its website to make genetic information easier to understand

23andMe, a genetic testing company, became a Silicon Valley sensation by giving consumers health and ancestry information based on their saliva sample, but it hit a setback in 2013 when the Food and Drug Administration told it to halt providing health data.

Two years after the ban, now 23andMe has announced that it is going to start providing customers with health information again, though quite less than before and with FDA approval.

The company is hopeful the information related to the risk of passing certain inherited diseases to one’s children is going to reignite growth in its subscriptions. The company is just evolving from being just a consumer testing service into a drug developer.

It has also reconstructed its website for making the genetic information easier to understand and has also decided to hike the price of its service to $199 from $99.

Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and chief executive of 23andMe, said part of what they have been trying to do in the past 2 years was to take benefit of being off the market to redesign the entire experience.

23andMe is based in Mountain View, Calif. In the beginning the company offered consumers information on their risks of contracting various diseases based on an analysis of the DNA in a sample of their saliva.

A buzz was created by the company’s celebrity-filled ‘spit parties’ and the message circulated by it that consumers have the right to know their own genetic information, without the involvement of a doctor or regulatory agency.