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'Jeffrey Epstein's Outlandish DNA Startup Received Special Tax Breaks' "Jeffrey Epstein received a valuable tax break on the basis of an outlandish business plan to study people's DNA on a Caribbean island and sell the resulting data to drug manufacturers. The venture overseeing the project, called Southern Trust, pulled in $200 million in revenues, the New York Times reported on Friday. Elements of Epstein's plan have links to reality. The idea of sequencing people's DNA, analyzing it, and selling the insights to drug companies is well-known to companies in the space, for example. Last year, personal genetics company 23andMe signed a $300 million deal last year to sell de-identified batches of genetic data to drug giant GlaxoSmithKline; Calico, Google's life-extension spinoff, once teamed up with genealogy and DNA site Ancestry to study the genetics of longevity." Erin Brodwin