As a consortium of industry and academia, at INDUNIV we are particularly proud of the efforts carried out in 2006. In previous years, our biotechnology cluster had identified the need for a pilot plant to train developing scientists and support biotechnology plants established on the island. In 2006, construction on this $12.5 million plant began at the Guanajibo Technology Park in Mayaguez.

We worked tirelessly throughout the year to promote a greater understanding of biotechnology in Puerto Rico. We concentrated our efforts during Biotechnology Week, an initiative that helped us reach out to 6,000 participants from high school students, to legislators and researchers.

We closely supported the island’s government to better project Puerto Rico’s growing strength in biotechnology. As a result in BIO Chicago 2006, the world’s premier biotechnology conference, Puerto Rico had a prominent participation that included the island’s top economic official, the Governor and the President of the University of Puerto Rico. For the first time, Puerto Rico had its own pavilion, the result of an investment made by the Puerto Rico Industrial Development co. (PRIDCO), the Puerto Rico Biotechnology Alliance and INDUNIV. We represented the island at the Council of State of BIO Associations. Puerto Rico’s combined presence caused a stir as the Governor of Puerto Rico, Aníbal Acevedo Vila, was honored as BIO 2006 Governor of the Year.

Another positive development for Puerto Rico’s biotechnology prospects is that after repeated efforts Puerto Rico’s profile was included in the Battelle Report, the most important document of its kind for the U.S. bioscience sector. Our Scientific Affairs Committee and PRIDCO’s Office of Strategic Planning and Economy assisted Battelle’s staff in gathering the information needed to include a profile of Puerto Rico’s bioscience industry.

Biotechnology extends to our agricultural sector. We are supporting the Puerto Rico Seed Research Association efforts to bring more scientific investigation employing biotechnology to the island. This research is geared at increasing yields in a number of seeds and warding off disease while generating new jobs and investment in Puerto Rico.

As energy prices continued to soar, hammering the competitiveness of the island’s economy, INDUNIV worked to design a policy framework and roadmap for the development of biofuels and the creation of a bioenergy center that would generate fuel alternatives. INDUNIV teamed up with University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez Campus researchers to propose a policy that would stimulate the production of sugarcane and the creation of a biomass processing plant to generate ethanol. Development of biofuels must be a cost effective and sustainable activity in order to be successful. Development of a new energy producing sector based on biofuels can also benefit from applying technology to agricultural crops and discovering enzymes in Puerto Rico’s biodiverse environment that could hasten energy generation from biofuels. Approximately 70% of the island’s energy needs is met by crude oil, whereas the rest is supplied by natural gas and coal.

The growing interest in our efforts to bring together suppliers and technical leaders became evident at last year’s INTERPHEX conference, the largest pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices conference on the island. Attendance soared to more than 5,000 people and 450 exhibitors, more than three times the 2005 event.

In 2006, we also centered our efforts in developing an inter-institutional agreement among nine university campuses in order to bring to our institutions the capabilities for pharmaceutical development. We also assisted PRIDCO in the feasibility and site evaluation of the proposed science park in the former naval base of Roosevelt Roads. As we support this development, we also facilitate its integration with a burgeoning “Knowledge Corridor” in the metropolitan area. Our role is to bring these different components together to create the kind of exchanges that can promote our development as a knowledge economy.

As part of our role as facilitator and a broker of knowledge-based initiatives, we continued to help the educational sector, at university level as well as from K-12, to continue to work on their curricula to fit the evolving needs of our economy.

Many of our initiatives and programs are ongoing events. For example, as we developed a sustainable energy strategy and put together a dream team of experts and organizations in 2006, in the coming years we will work on the adoption of this policy by the public sector and on attracting investment to the area. Our efforts bear fruit as long as we continue to make Puerto Rico more competitive, our industry stronger and our people better prepared to face the future.