The Wellness8 September 2026Last reviewed 8 September 2026
A blood panel measures how your body is today and changes by the week. A genome is the same three billion letters for life, so it is read once and re read as the science moves. It carries what a panel cannot, which is how you handle medicines and what you may pass on.
A blood panel is a measurement of the present. Cholesterol, thyroid, iron and glucose all move with the season, the week and what you ate, which is why they are worth repeating and why one reading rarely settles anything on its own.
A genome does not move. The letters you were born with are the letters you die with, so it is read once, properly, and the value comes from re reading the interpretation rather than re taking the sample. That is the whole difference in one sentence, and everything below follows from it.
The first is how your body handles medicines. A panel cannot tell you that a standard dose of a common drug will be cleared too fast to work or too slowly to be safe. A pharmacogenomic report can, and it applies to prescriptions you have not been given yet.
The second is what is sitting in a gene where nothing is wrong yet. The American College of Medical Genetics keeps a list of the genes where a finding changes what a doctor does, currently 81 of them in version 3.3, mostly cardiovascular and cancer risk. A panel measures the consequence once it has begun. A genome names the risk before it has.
The third is what you may pass on. Carrier status is invisible to every blood test in the catalogue and matters to anyone thinking about children.
The strongest case by a distance is medicines. PREPARE randomised 6,944 patients across seven countries and found that prescribing against a pharmacogenomic report cut clinically relevant adverse drug reactions by 30%. That is a randomised trial with a hard endpoint, and it is the reason a genome is worth reading even for somebody who is entirely well.
The middle case is inherited risk. Around 6% of people carry a finding on the ACMG list that changes what a doctor does, 3.0% cardiovascular and 2.0% cancer in a cohort of 3,972 exomes read against it. Useful, and a long way from most.
Polygenic risk for coronary disease is real and narrow. The European Society of Cardiology endorsed it in a consensus statement in 2025, and it is most useful in the middle of the risk range, where it actually moves a treatment decision rather than confirming one already made.
The thin case is the general screen. The 2019 Cochrane review pooled 251,891 people and found that general health checks did not lower mortality while producing more diagnoses. A pilot randomised trial of sequencing in healthy adults, published in Annals of Internal Medicine in 2017, found more downstream testing and no clear harm, which is honest and is not a benefit.
Consumer sequencing at thirty fold depth has been sold between $180 and $430. A clinical laboratory doing the same read to ISO 15189 standards, with interpretation and a secondary findings report, charges between $3,000 and $5,000. Both numbers are real and they are not the same product.
The difference is accreditation, interpretation and the person who tells you what it means. A file of letters with no clinician attached is cheap because it is unfinished.
The other thing worth knowing is what happens when a genome is a product rather than a record. Nebula Genomics, one of the best known consumer sequencing companies, shut in February 2025. Ask any provider where your data lives, who holds it if the company stops trading, and how you get it out.
The Wellness reads your whole genome once at thirty fold depth in a laboratory accredited to ISO 15189, interprets it against the ACMG secondary findings list, and has a registered genetic counsellor speak to you before and after. A doctor writes the plan into your record. The raw data is yours, downloadable, and deleted the day you ask.
Genome is £4,995 for one person. Genome and Medicines is £9,995 and adds the full pharmacogenomic report against the CPIC and DPWG guidelines, polygenic risk, and a genome read again every year for life. Family Genome is £24,995 for four people, with family segregation where a finding appears.
A genome does not replace the doctor, the history or the blood work. It sits under them.
30%
fewer clinically relevant adverse drug reactions when prescribing against a pharmacogenomic report, in a randomised trial of 6,944 patients across seven countries.
PREPARE, Swen JJ and colleagues, The Lancet, 2023 Open the paper
81
genes are on the ACMG secondary findings list, version 3.3, where a finding changes what a doctor does.
ACMG secondary findings list v3.3, Genetics in Medicine, 2025
6%
of people carry an actionable finding on that list, 3.0% cardiovascular and 2.0% cancer in a cohort of 3,972 exomes.
Cohort of 3,972 exomes read against ACMG SF v3.3, 6.2% actionable
2025
is the year the European Society of Cardiology endorsed polygenic risk scores for cardiovascular disease in a clinical consensus statement.
ESC clinical consensus statement on polygenic risk scores, European Heart Journal, 2025
251,891
people were pooled in the Cochrane review of general health checks, which found no reduction in mortality and more diagnoses.
Krogsbøll LT and colleagues, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2019 Open the paper
2017
is the year of the pilot randomised trial of sequencing in healthy adults, which found more downstream testing and no clear harm.
Vassy JL and colleagues, Annals of Internal Medicine, 2017
$180
to $430 is the consumer price for a thirty fold whole genome, against $3,000 to $5,000 in a clinical laboratory with interpretation.
Published consumer and clinical laboratory prices, surveyed for the front doors research pack, September 2026
February 2025
is when Nebula Genomics, one of the best known consumer sequencing companies, stopped trading.
Nebula Genomics closure, February 2025
Yes. A genome tells you what you carry and a panel tells you how you are. Neither answers the other’s question, and a doctor uses both.
Never. The letters do not change, so the sample is taken once and the interpretation is read again each year against what has been learned since.
It is held on your record by the clinic, the raw data is yours to download, and it is deleted the day you ask.
No. It names risks and it names how you handle medicines. Most of what happens to you will still be decided by how you live and by luck.