Fiscal Year 2016-2017 Annual Report
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FISCAL YEAR 2016-2017 ANNUAL REPORT www.prsciencetrust.org Email: [email protected] Phone: 787-523-1592 Fax: 787-523-5610 Postal Address: PO Box 363475, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-3475 Physical Address: 105, Carr. #21 Km. 0.8, Bo. Monacillos, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00927 Puerto Rico Innovation is a global fuels the economy innovation hub We invest, facilitate and build capacity to continually advance Puerto Rico’s economy and its citizens’ well-being through innovation-driven enterprises, science and technology and its industrial base. Science creates the future Technology enables change ANNUAL REPORT FISCAL YEAR 2016-2017 ANNUAL REPORT FISCAL YEAR 2016-2017 CONTENTS LETTER TO STAKEHOLDERS 3 ABOUT THE TRUST 7 OUR TRUSTEES 11-13 PROGRAMS and PROJECTS 14-73 EVENTS and MEDIA COVERAGE 74-95 ADDEMDUM 96-266 CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 268-299 LETTER TO OUR STAKEHOLDERS “We need to redesign our energy and water management infrastructures, renovate our housing strategies, renew our food value chain, and rethink our healthcare system.” Lucy Crespo CEO Puerto Rico Science, Technology And Research Trust. 6 ANNUAL REPORT FISCAL YEAR 2016-2017 Today we are very proud to share with you how the Puerto Rico Science Technology and Research Trust (PRSTRT) is advancing our strategic plan to position Puerto Rico as a recognized global innovation hub that develops, attracts, and retains scientists, technology entrepreneurs, and enterprises to unlock world class creativity and competitiveness. The narrative that you will enjoy in the next pages reflects the enormous passion and commitment that our Boards, our team, and our partners have to enable this vision for Puerto Rico. You will also be able to appreciate how the en- trepreneurial, as well as the scientific and technology ecosystems are working together as one community to advance our common agenda. The results in this report demonstrated the pride, focus, energy, skills, dedication and passion that the PRSTRT‘s leadership team and employees demonstrated every day. The Puerto Rico Consortium for Clinical Research (PRCCI) now a 501(C)3, celebrated it first year of operation with 22 research sites across the Island, covering about 25 therapeutic areas with more than 65 investigators. Over 250 studies opportunities were received, and 15 contracts were signed and clinical trials are in process or completed. These studies opportunities included 7 from the 10 largest CRO in the business, and also 7 from 10 largest pharmaceutical companies. Strategic Alliances are in place with Yale Center for Clinical Research (YCCI), Phamaseek, Clinical Research Group, and with PAREXEL the 4th largest CRO in the world. One of the most significant contributions of PRCCI for this year was the training of over 400 Clinical Trial professionals by YCCI and Transcelerate members (such as Merck, Pfizer and Abbie). PRCCI hosted the first patient symposium with more than 20 patient groups represented. PRCCI was invited to explore potential collaboration and or expansion in three (3) LATAM Countries (Mexico, Colombia and Costa Rica). For Parallel18 generation 3 and 4 we selected sixty six (66) companies from the nine hundred and sixty four (964) applications received from over fifty (50) countries. For the first two years of the program one hundred and thirty one (131) companies participated from one thousand eight hundred and seventy two (1872) applications from over seventy (70) countries. The founders of thirty three (33) of the companies are from Puerto Rico and ninety eight (98) were from outside of Puerto Rico. Parallel 18 main focus is to foster and drive economic development. We are very proud to report that for the first three generations the total income generated by the participating companies while in Parallel18 and after just reached over seventeen millions ($17M) and out of that amount over eight millions ($8M) were generated in Puerto Rico. Over two hundred and thirty seven (237) full and part time jobs were created among the first three generations. The other Parallel18 initiative to promote economic development is the P18 Venture Fund. For companies that after the program: (1) maintain their operations in Puerto Rico, (2) commit to certain full time employment level, (3) received external investment, P18 Venture Fund provide matching fund to retain alumni in Puerto Rico. So far nine (9) companies received the matching funding for a total of six hundred seventy five thousand dollars ($675,000). The external funding to match that investment is three million four hundred and sixty thousand dollars ($3,460,000). The Give Back Program for the first generations impacted over five thousands 5000 students with over two hundred and eighty one (281) presentations and over eight hundred forty five hours (845). In less than a year Colmena 66 – Tu Conexión Empresarial has become an essential tool in our entrepreneurs’ toolbox. Colmena 66 is a network that provides easy access to all the resources available for entrepreneurs, and small businesses to growth. We also identified ecosystem support gaps and work with the different partners to fulfill or overcome Go to next page > LETTER TO STAKEHOLDERS 3 LETTER TO OUR STAKEHOLDERS 4 ANNUAL REPORT FISCAL YEAR 2016-2017 these gaps. Over two hundred (200) organizations are partners in Colmena 66; we fulfilled over eleven thousand (11K) information requests, and for the year managed over three hundred (300) events in the shared calendar. The regional Colmena 66 meet-ups events were one of the most important deployment activities completed this year. In its first year of operation, Colmena 66 key performance indicators are among the top third in the United States Sourcelink affiliates. Colmena 66 is a transformational initiative that is creating knowledge and capabilities for our entrepreneur- ship ecosystem, is transforming lives of our entrepreneurs, and creating commercial opportunities to advance Puerto Rico economic development. Two years ago, my first official event at the Trust was to present the first PRSTRT Research Grant Program awards. I presented those awards to a distinguished group of researchers which projects have the potential of creating knowledge, transforming lives, and or to create commercialization opportunities to advance Puerto Rico economic development. On July 2017 we shared with all our communities the impact report of the first two year of the PRSTRT Research Grant Program awards. Around six million dollars ($6M) were distributed among fifty one (51) grantees. For those two years we received and processed over 462 applications in our grant lifecycle platform Wizehive. Twenty four direct jobs (24) were created as results of the grants, and we impacted one hundred and twenty seven (127) students. Our awardees delivered around 93 worldwide abstracts and presentations. Seven (7) patents were submitted, six (6) companies were created out of our universities, and over five ($5M) million dollars were received from externals grants based on our funded research. One of the most significant accomplishment is that twenty four (24) SBIR and STTR proposals that were submitted under the Trust SBIR/STTR program resulted in nine (9) approved proposals. This amount is higher that all the SBIR and STTR approved for PR in the last decade. One of the most significant accomplishments with the Research programs is that we established a global network of over three hundred (300) proposal reviewers with diverse matter expertise. The Puerto Rico Vector Control Unit was established this year thru a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). PRVCU is responsible of implementing an integrated vector management program including vector surveillance, vector control, and community mobilization and activation. The vector surveillance laboratory was set up in the Puerto Rico Environmental Laboratory, a shared space with the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board. To enable a more efficient program and better data based decision making process the ArcGIS ESRI suite was deployed in the Microsoft Azure Cloud. Our technology platform was completed by implementing the PSI Pathway Suite of Products for Quality and Documentation Management and Salesforce CRM and Desk for stakeholders and call center management. Key PRVCU positions were recruited and trained. Meetings were hold with the leadership, and technical council and with ample participation of the community council. Basic programs for community mobilization, risk management and communication, education and training, partnership and advocacy were defined, and are in the process of being implemented. As we write this report we are joining forces with key educational influencers and organizations to develop and deploy key integrated vector management outreach and educational program, such as: Para La Naturaleza, Ada Monzón and her Ecoexploratorio; María Falcón’s Geoambiente TV production, Escuela Virtual and Casa Grande. In the next pages of this annual report you will find the status of each one of the programs that are part of the PRSTRT strategic plan as well as which are the key actions for the next year. Go to next page > LETTER TO STAKEHOLDERS 5 LETTER TO STAKEHOLDERS Comments about Hurricane Maria As we were completing this annual report Puerto Rico suffered the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria, one-of-a-kind hurricane impacting the lives of every person in Puerto Rico. I did not want to close my letter to the stakeholders without including some of the immediate efforts and activities that the Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust engaged to spearhead the recovery of Puerto Rico after the relief efforts. After having returned to operations by October 2, 2017, thanks to our electric generator , we focused our energy on the following key initiatives: ξ Levanta tu Negocio Puerto Rico – In a joint effort of the entrepreneurial ecosystem members, we enabled our ESRI platform to deploy a program among the small businesses in Puerto Rico to assess the impact of hur- ricane Maria on them, and their needs. We channel the collected information (needs) among several partners that were distributing cash grants, electrical generators, and other support articles.