China’s Genetics Giant Wants to Tailor Medicine to Your DNA

At the Shenzhen headquarters of the Chinese genetics company BGI Group, there’s no excuse for poor health. Employees are urged to punctuate their days with quick bursts of high-intensity exercise on the weight benches, pullup bars, and spin bikes placed in the open-plan offices’ breakout areas. Riding elevators is officially discouraged. For those who insist, the company has placed a simple injunction on the doors, in English and Chinese: “DO SQUATS if taking the lift.” For lunch, in-house coffee bars offer a selection of low-calorie “nutrition meals” as well as a curious “decreasing serum uric acid series.” During their off hours, employees set out on arduous group hikes up and down the verdant mountains surrounding the city, often led by senior executives for whom physical fitness is a component of annual performance reviews. “If I get fat, no bonus,” one jokes, a little anxiously.

BGI’s co-founder, chairman, and animating force, 65-year-old geneticist Wang Jian, insists on all this exertion not just because he believes healthy workers are more productive. He also wants the more than 6,000 employees of his company, one of the world’s largest producers of genetic research, to be walking advertisements for their products. To that end, employees and their families are encouraged to sample the wares, undergoing a regular battery of genetic and other tests to screen for such illnesses as cancer, heart disease, and dementia. Monitoring and prevention plans are put in place for those with worrisome results. With the right diagnostics and healthful lifestyles, Wang professes, everyone at BGI should live to 99 or older. It will take a while to test the claim: The average age of his employees is just over 30.