NSF Engines Development Award: Advancing biopharmaceutical technologies and manufacturing practices (PR)

该区域创新引擎发展奖专注于波多黎各的生物制药行业，并动员公共，私营，非营利和学术部门之间的合作伙伴关系，以支持成功的发现到产品生态系统。作为美国可持续国家安全战略的一部分，波多黎各拥有快速改造全球药品供应链的必要基石和关键合作者，使其更加稳定、可靠和需求驱动。由波多黎各科学、技术和研究信托基金领导的协调努力，与其他组织合作，将动员岛上不同的现有举措，扩大适应新知识的能力，同时促进合作伙伴关系的发展，以支持建立从发现到产品价值链的生物制药集群引擎。该引擎的成功取决于稳定的新药（发现）、分散（可持续）制造的创新方法、关键的通信和能源（可再生）基础设施以及数据驱动决策能力的关键创新。该奖项利用了生态系统所有组成部分的互动性（例如，政策、资本、研发、市场、服务和社会责任），以实现持续增长。生物制药生态系统需要转变为更高效、更灵活、更小的设施，以适应快速变化的市场条件，并利用包括分布式制造、区块链、5G和人工智能基础设施在内的连续流制造。这些资产将通过基础设施、能力建设和培训来缩小生物制药发现与药物商业化生产价值链中的差距。拟议的努力将集中于（并统一）来自大公司，学术界，小公司和孵化器的专家的多样化联盟。如果成功的话，这项开发奖励所产生的完整NSF引擎预计将立即对经济产生可衡量的影响（预计在协同努力的前五年内对GDP做出贡献），公平地增加就业机会和劳动力培训战略，以推动波多黎各成为美国最大和最灵活的生物制药中心。此外，该方法还将包括加强临床试验，为药物开发人员提供协调的西班牙裔人群。分散式制造概念将允许多样化的就业分布，公平的经济发展和包容性的劳动力发展，同时提高该行业在岛上的现有足迹。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Regional Innovation Engines Development Award is focused on the biopharma industry in Puerto Rico and mobilizing partnerships among the public, private, non-profit, and academic sectors to support a successful discovery-to-product ecosystem. Puerto Rico has the necessary building blocks and key collaborators to quickly revamp the global supply chain for medicines to make it more stable, reliable, and demand-driven as part of a sustainable national security strategy for the United States. A coordinated effort led by the Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust, in partnership with other organizations, will mobilize disparate and existing initiatives on the island that broaden the capability to adapt new knowledge while facilitating the development of partnerships to support a biopharmaceutical cluster engine that establishes a discovery-to-product value chain. The success of this engine is predicated on a steady pipeline of new medicines (discovery), innovative approaches to decentralized (sustainable) manufacturing, critical communication and energy (renewable) infrastructure, and key innovations in data-driven decision-making capability.The award leverages the interactivity of all components of an ecosystem (e.g., policy, capital, R&D, markets, services, and social responsibility) to achieve sustained growth. The biopharma ecosystem needs to be transformed into more efficient, agile, smaller facilities ready for rapidly changing market conditions and leverage continuous flow manufacturing incorporating distributed manufacturing, blockchain, 5G, and artificial intelligence infrastructure. These assets will be leveraged to close the gap in the value chain of biopharmaceutical discovery to commercial production of medicines through infrastructure, capacity building, and training. The proposed effort will focus upon (and unify) a diverse coalition of experts from large corporations, academia, small companies, and incubators. If successful, the full NSF Engine resulting from this development award is expected to immediately have a measurable impact on the economy (with a contribution to GDP expected within the first five years of the concerted effort), equitably increase the number of jobs, and workforce training strategies to propel Puerto Rico to be the largest - and most agile - biopharma hub in the US. In addition, the approach will also include enhanced clinical trials, providing drug developers with coordinated access to Hispanic populations. The decentralized manufacturing concept will allow for a diverse distribution of jobs, equitable economic development, and inclusive workforce development while raising the existing footprint of the industry on the Island.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.