Annette Gilchrist started out as a cancer researcher before starting MyGenomeRx, on online platform that identifies potential gene-drug interactions.
She joined The Savvy Entrepreneur to share the story of shy she founded MyGenomeRx, and how she's built & grown the company.
Annette's medical research background led her to teach pharmacists, and as part of one of her courses, she had pharmacy students use their DNA to identify potential gene-drug interactions. She quickly realized that there were a lot of potential interactions, but no good websites to easily access this information.
She partnered with a coding whiz and they developed MyGenomeRx, a site where you can enter your DNA from ancestry.com, 23and me, or other source. For a small fee, the platform then identifies gene markers that may cause your body to uptake a drug faster than normal, slower than normal, or have no response to at all.
Researchers are constantly finding indications of these, all of which help both patients & physicians determine which drug and dosage to use.
Annette shares some of the challenges of creating such a huge matching platform and of generating a report that is easily understandable. It's also a story of how to find the right co-founder, and the challenges of creating a company as a side hustle for both of them, not to mention the challenges of marketing and pricing. It helps that this is not Annette's first “rodeo” as a founding entrepreneur, and she talks about how some of the learnings with her first company have helped as she's built and grown MyGenomeRx.
It's an interesting story, and Annette openly shares some of the challenges she's faced along the way. And she candidly shares some of the lessons she's learned and advice for other budding entrepreneurs.
Click on the arrow to listen to the fascinating story of MyGenomeRx — and you might even decide it's a good idea to find out your own drug-gene interactions. Or go here to read a transcript of the interview!
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