Healthcare >> CEO Interviews >> October 12, 1998
FRED E. COOPER is the Chief Executive Officer and a director of
Biocontrol Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:BICO), a western Pennsylvania
company that develops and internationally markets medical and
environmental products. Mr. Cooper joined Biocontrol in 1989 and, since
1990 has directed all business aspects of the company. He engineered
raising over $130 million to fund the research and development of the
company's products, including its Diasensor'1000 noninvasive glucose
sensor for diabetics, which is the world's first noninvasive sensor.
After graduating from the University of Maryland, where he played
football and earned a degree in business marketing and finance, Mr.
Cooper held various business positions for the first few years. Always
entrepreneurial in nature, Mr. Cooper, just 27 years old, then founded
and managed Cooper Leasing Corporation, a company specializing in
equipment and venture financing. From there, he merged with a partner
and founded Equitable Financial Management, Inc., a financial
intermediary company managing all aspects and serving as Executive Vice
President until his divestiture of ownership in August 1990. Although
established in 1972 (then called Coratomic, Inc.), Biocontrol had never
really had a business manager, and Mr. Cooper knew he had his work cut
out for him. Not in his vivid imagination, however, could he have
realized what an extraordinary task he had assumed. Fortunately for
Biocontrol, Mr. Cooper has the imagination, fortitude, and foresight
necessary to lead a small corporation through the research and
development of a medical device, a venture definitely not for the faint
of heart. Without Mr. Cooper's strong leadership, Biocontrol might not
have emerged from that ordeal with a viable product now approved for
marketing outside the U.S. To help the company survive, Mr. Cooper has
followed his strong belief in diversification, concurrently developing
whole-body extracorporeal hypothermia treatment and equipment for use in
cancer and HIV/AIDS, oil spill clean up products, and a metal alloy
coating that may be a replacement for hard chrome. Most of these
products are now ready for marketing, and Mr. Cooper has moved
Biocontrol from research and development to marketing also a task to
test his imagination and fortitude. Profile
Mr. Cooper: Biocontrol Technology's history goes back to about 1972. It
was founded by David Purdy, who is still the
