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REV: OCTOBER 25, 2013
Dr. Dean Ornish, creator of Lifestyle Advantage was contemplating the future direction of his firm.
Dr. Ornish had published a series of studies demonstrating that a low-fat, low-protein diet combined with exercise, stress management, and support helped to reverse heart disease.[1] His subsequent books, Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease and Eat More, and Weigh Less: Dr. Dean Ornish’s Life Choice Program for Losing Weight Safely While Eating Abundantly, were widely read.
But Ornish’s regimen of a low-fat diet that emphasized fruits, vegetables, whole grains and excluded animal products, combined with exercise and stress management, was so taxing that many people required an extensive support program to adhere to it. [2] At $7,200 for a year, many potential users found its cost beyond their financial resources. Lifestyle Advantage was incorporated to help accelerate and enlarge market adoption by training hospital personnel in the program. Separately, Ornish offered lifestyle retreats.
Ornish’s interests were not only, or even primarily, to create a successful business, but rather to widen the use of his dietary/lifestyle regimens. He was, after all, first and foremost a doctor who was addressing the growing and pernicious problem of obesity in the United States. He thought he could help users adopt his ideas by coupling the acumen of business and marketing professionals to his work.
Although the market was large, $33 billion, [3] success was not guaranteed. Both Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, for example, had troubled corporate histories. Yet, the business could be enormously lucrative. The privately owned Slim-Fast, for example, was sold for $2.3 billion in cash, in 2000, to Unilever. [4]
What could Ornish learn from these successes and failures?
Professor Regina E. Herzlinger and John McDonough (MBA ’98) prepared this case. We are grateful to Dr Kevin Schulman and Dr. George Blackburn for their comments and to Research Associate Hannah Catzen for her assistance. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.
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