One Company Makes Almost All the Home DNA Test Spit Tubes

If you’re looking for a bellwether in the $100 million consumer DNA-testing industry, OraSure Technologies Inc. would make a good choice. Before companies such as 23andMe Inc. can begin to assess just how Scandinavian you are, a vial carrying your saliva needs to make its way safely to the company’s lab. That vial was almost certainly designed by OraSure’s subsidiary, DNA Genotek. OraSure Chief Executive Officer Stephen Tang reported profits of about $20 million on $182 million in revenue last year, and these days his company’s biggest business is spit.

A plastic tube may not sound like a mind-blowing invention, but saliva samples are extremely sensitive to time, temperature, and other factors, and the genetic information encoded within can easily degrade if not properly stored. For companies offering cheap DNA analysis, safely transporting saliva is no small feat. Each half-teaspoon sample needs to survive delays in delivery and any hot or cold spikes it’s exposed to on its journey through the postal system, as well as on the customer’s end. “You’ve got to make it as easy as possible for a person to spit in the tube, close the tube, recap the tube, and send it to you without any variation,” Tang says.