Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Challenges are part of every entrepreneur’s life; it is the mantra of Frederic Scheer who has been entrepreneur on several continents for the past 40 years. “You need to be ready to face new challenges all the time, you need to learn from these challenges and grow from your failures.”
Handout
Being an entrepreneur for Scheer started in France where he was born and educated. Scheer got two doctorates from the University of Paris (Assas and Pantheon) and an MBA from Institut d ‘Etudes Politiques de Paris, he started in real estate and very quickly became an investment banker. His road went across Europe, Italy, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands but his goal was to settle in the US, for him “the land of opportunity”. He moved to the East Coast in 1985 where he became the CEO of Imperial Hotel, then moved into the movie industry in Los Angeles but he found his vocation a few years later in acquiring from an Italian company the rights for biodegradable plastic resins at a time nobody knew what that means.
In a few years he realized that the planet was suffering and that there was an overproduction of plastic resin made of petroleum origin. Scheer embraced his desire to change our way of living. He participated in defining the terms “biodegradable and compostable” as we know them today in creating the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), he created his first company Biocorp in the field. He highlighted the issues in serving the Sydney 2000 Olympics with all the compostable bags and the food utensils. His second company, Cereplast he brought it to Nasdaq in 2011 but still fighting the lack of interest and the price of oil. We were not ready yet, he saw the scorching earth prior to others but we had to wait another 10 years for finally seeing the world moving toward a greener approach.
In the meantime, Scheer continued his struggles as an entrepreneur, but Scheer was faced with a different type of challenges: Health. Scheer had to fight cancer, he reacted as an entrepreneur. Scheer went on to fight the difficult issues of health but saw an opportunity and decided to create a company Alercell that would specialize in cancer early detection. “This is my new life challenge, making sure that Alercell will change the way we approach cancer and make sure that we detect it as early as possible, prior to going through the grueling treatments.”
In the past couple of years, we have come up with a number of treatments that have cured cancer completely for many patients around the world. There are significant numbers of cancer survivors, especially in some of the most developed countries like the United States and Europe. According to the research reports shared by Wattanosoth Cancer Hospital, it has been indicated that the death rate of cancer patients has significantly dropped due to scientific advancements in cancer treatment. This includes detection and diagnostic equipment, innovative technology, and the genetic testing results that have contributed to the early detection of mutated cells before they turn into cancer cells and thus, increasing effective results from cancer treatments.
However, a large population of people with cancer are not being treated on time. If symptoms of cancer are not treated in their earlier stages, it will start to grow and reach higher stages of cancer where not only will the disease become painful, but it will also be harder to cure, and the treatments will be more expensive. This is what Scheer is targeting with Alercell.
Operating out of beautiful Bozeman, Montana, Alercell, Inc is a molecular diagnostics company that provides cancer and leukemia rapid tests to diagnose these life-threatening illnesses at an early stage. The company was founded with the aim of providing more accurate and timely diagnostic tools for cancer patients worldwide. Alercell’s mission is to make a difference in the fight against cancer by providing innovative and accurate diagnostic solutions that improve patient outcomes.
Alercell’s products are based on cutting-edge technology that enables the early detection of cancer and Leukemia. The company’s flagship product, the Alercell Leukemia Rapid Test, is a next generation sequencing-based test that can detect Leukemia genes in just a few hours. This diagnostic tool can be used by healthcare professionals to diagnose Leukemia patients quickly and accurately, allowing them to start treatment as soon as possible.
If you ask Scheer what the most important quality for a young entrepreneur, his answer is short “resilience and be ready for everything”.
