Independence Day is a Celebration of Individual Liberty

It is sometimes hard to explain to others what we at iSelect do every day. While we spend a lot of time worrying about finance and diligence, we also need to understand a wide array of technology. Over the last 3 years iSelect has invested in 25 companies. To do that, we have looked at more than 1,500 entrepreneurs. So we look at a lot of companies.

 So what companies did we meet this week?

 A company that reduces blood plasma into a film, putty, or injectable. Once applied to tissue or bone, it doubles the regeneration rate while reducing staph and MRSA infections. A blood test that detects cancer the size of a pin head, while eliminating billions in false positive costs. A laser like imaging device helping surgeons detect cancer cells in real time, capturing all the “Margin” when they cut out tumors. A dialysis like device filtering bacteria from blood, dramatically accelerating diagnosis and providing a last ditch effort against killer infections. A Chinese entrepreneur working on how to get 4.5M/yr new Chinese cancer patients access to the best treatment centers in the world, in the United States. 

Every week our team sees another 20 companies just like these. Each led by individuals with a different approach to a tough problem. Each individual pursuing a solution someone else had yet to think about. 

 “Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” to me means the inspiration of the individual is the ultimate precious source of leadership society harnesses to move forward.  When each of us focuses on hard problems, we make our lives better, we make the nation better, and we make the world better. The individual has more power than the Monarch.

No matter how frustrated we get with each other over politics, business, or life, in the end what brings us together, what makes the United States so unique, is we are all Americans. We believe in individual liberty.

That is what I am celebrating this July 4th.

And while I take a couple of days off, I am studying up on healthcare and cancer. These are the links I saved this week.

• Death of Cancer
• Training The Immune System To Fight Cancer Has 19th-Century Roots
• MIT’s Andrew Lo Touts Megafund to Tackle Cancer, Rare Diseases
• Venture capitalist George Zachary thought he had cancer, and from that point he was all biotech
• Ending the Requirement to Show Drug Efficacy
• DARPA develops a way for humans to produce their own life saving vaccines
• Why We Can't Solve Big Problems
• Scientific Regress
• Diagnosing the decline in pharmaceutical R&D efficiency

Let me know if you read something I'd like ... Or if there are other sources I should add to my weekly reading.

Happy 4th of July,

Carter