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PharmaGuide

About

The supplement industry was built to sell. Not always to protect you.

Most dietary supplements enter the US market without FDA pre-market safety testing. The catalog is enormous, the labels are confusing, and when something gets recalled, you're usually the last to find out.

We built PharmaGuide because this shouldn't be normal.

01 · Why we built it

This started personal.

  • “My father was hospitalized.”

    He was already on blood pressure medication. The hospital prescribed something new — with a documented interaction with his existing prescription. A conflict that could have been caught with a simple cross-reference.

  • “Then it happened to me.”

    After being diagnosed with a metabolic condition and starting prescription medication, I discovered something troubling: a supplement I was taking was interfering with how my medication worked — and I only found out by accident. The information existed. Nobody had connected the dots.

Sean Cheick Baradji

Sean Cheick Baradji, Founder & CEO

02 · What supplement labels don't always make clear

Four common assumptions. Worth a closer look.

  • Zero pre-market approval

    The assumption

    “FDA Approved”

    The truth

    The FDA does not approve supplements before they hit shelves. Most supplements enter the market without pre-market safety testing. They are "presumed safe" until proven harmful — sometimes years later, after the harm.

    Source · FDA — Information for Consumers on Using Dietary Supplements
  • The fairy-dusting deception

    The assumption

    “Proprietary Blend”

    The truth

    Companies use "proprietary blends" to list ingredients without disclosing individual amounts. The label may not reveal the exact dose of each active ingredient — and legally, it doesn't have to. PharmaGuide decomposes these blends and estimates per-ingredient ranges.

    Source · Learn more · Ingredient & Quality Transparency
  • 23,000 ER visits per year

    The assumption

    “It's natural, so it can't hurt me”

    The truth

    Every year, supplement-related events send 23,000+ Americans to the Emergency Room. From internal bleeding to heart palpitations to acute liver injury — "natural" doesn't mean safe.

    Source · Geller AI et al., New England Journal of Medicine (2015)
  • The absorption lie

    The assumption

    “100% Daily Value”

    The truth

    Your body isn't a beaker. Different forms of the same vitamin can absorb differently — for example, synthetic vitamin E is absorbed less efficiently than its natural form. The label tells you what's in the bottle, not what reaches your bloodstream.

    Source · NIH ODS · Vitamin E fact sheet

The 23,000 figure is supplement-specific. Separately, the homepage cites 4,100+ daily ER visits across all medication-related events — a broader category that includes prescription interactions.

03 · The gap we're closing

Two systems. Wildly different rules.

Compare what happens when a prescription drug is recalled vs. when a supplement is recalled. The gap is the entire reason PharmaGuide exists.

If your prescription drug is recalled

There are established systems to identify and respond.

  • Pharmacy has your record on file
  • FDA mandates direct notification
  • Insurance flags the prescription
  • Your prescriber is informed

If your supplement is recalled

You may never hear about it.

  • No purchase record connects you to the brand
  • FDA recalls reach industry, not consumers
  • No insurer or prescriber flags it
  • You learn from a news article — if at all

We built PharmaGuide to close this gap.

04 · What we believe

Four principles. Non-negotiable.

  • 01

    Radical transparency

    Every interaction shows the mechanism, evidence level, and source. When evidence is weak or conflicting, we say so directly.

  • 02

    No conflicts of interest

    We don't accept supplement-brand sponsorships, affiliate commissions, or paid placements. The product is the business model.

  • 03

    Privacy by design

    Core stack checks are designed with local-first privacy safeguards. Your data stays on your device wherever possible.

  • 04

    Clinician-reviewed

    Clinical guidance is reviewed by licensed healthcare professionals before release. Not just AI, not just engineers — actual clinical judgment.

05 · The team

Small team. Sharp focus.

  • Sean Cheick Baradji

    Sean Cheick Baradji

    Founder & CEO

    B&Br Technology · Boston, MA

    Built PharmaGuide after watching family members navigate medication and supplement complexity without the tools to do it safely.

  • Laurie Pham, PharmD

    Laurie Pham, PharmD

    Doctor of Pharmacy · Clinical Review

    15+ years pharmacovigilance

    Reviews interaction guidance before release. Owns the clinical accuracy bar — drug-supplement, supplement-supplement, and dose-summation reasoning.

  • Miriam Farez, NP

    Miriam Farez, NP

    Nurse Practitioner · Patient-Education Review

    Integrative health practice

    Patient-education review. Reads every post and warning from a healthcare-provider angle: is this clear, accessible, and actionable?

Boston · Cambridge medical ecosystem.

Sound like something you need?

Join us in building something that actually matters.

Opening in waves through 2026. Be among the first to use PharmaGuide as we prepare for launch.

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Keep reading

More on what we do and how.