A Lesson From the Shark Tank on ABC

Last week I watched an episode of Shark Tank. The “contestant” was Joe Moore, creator of the First Defense Nasal Screen.

Regardless of what you think about the value of this product, Joe said something very interesting during his pitch to the sharks. He discussed how a major American pharmaceutical company rejected his proposal to market this allergy-preventing nasal screen – not because it was a bad idea, but because prevention isn’t as profitable as treatment.

They considered buying the brand, but had no plans of actually selling it… They simply wanted to eliminate Mr. Moore’s product from the marketplace. In his words, they told him, “Why buy prevention for a dollar when we can sell treatments for $14?”

Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s not making this up… If that really happened, it’s painfully obvious that Big Pharma has succumbed to mercenary self-interest.

If they would rather you be sick than well, can you really trust anything they say? I hope you’ll keep this in mind the next time you “race for a cure.”