Veterinarian Ignacio Pino, president and founder of CDI Health, won the first prize in the business contest EnterPrize, sponsored by Guayacan Group and McKinsey and Company firm. Pino works with cattle farmers in western Puerto Rico and from there was born the idea of establishing a biotechnology company focuses on the developments, commercialization, marketing and distribution of veterinary drugs. Pino indicated that CDI Health already has a product in development. It is a vaccine against babeciosis for cattle, which he started developing four years ago in collaboration with the University of Puerto Rico. Another product Pino wants to commercialize is a nutritional supplement aimed to treat diarrhea in calves. This product was developed by Cornell University, but has not been commercialized yet. The third product he wants to commercialize is an infusion to treat mastitis, a product that was developed by the Federal Department of Agriculture, but its not yet in the market.

The First Forum of Inventors was a great opportunity to showcase the Puerto Rican creativity, gathering more than a hundred participants that included entrepreneurs, inventors, academics, and state functionaries, with the purpose of promoting the development of new ideas and educating about the resources available to support inventors. The inventors assisting the activity pointed out the importance that the government creates measures to support patenting and commercialization of inventions.

Construction for the Center for Agro-Industrial Innovation and Technology (CITAI) Alfredo Ramirez de Arellano and Rosell, in the Unversity of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez (RUM), started this past week.

CienciaPR established a collaboration with the Science section of El Nuevo Dia, to write articles featuring what our scientists do and how science affects our society. CienciaPR members talked to this newspaper about this collaboration and the initiatives of CAPRI and CienciaPR