The Medical Devices Industry, a bright spot in the Puerto Rican economy

The Medical Devices Industry, a bright spot in the Puerto Rican economy.

I attended the Medical Devices Industry and FDA Leadership Forum in the Normandie Hotel in San Juan, last Thursday.

The organizers of the event were, PRTEC, PRIDCO and the FDA.

What were the highlights of this conference?

First of all, times are tough and Puerto Rico is now competing with more countries that want a bigger share of the Medical Devices and Pharmaceutical Industries.
PRTEC is a non profit organization which includes representatives of the government, the private sector and academia. There is no doubt that in order for us to be successful in attracting companies to Puerto Rico and keeping the ones we have, everyone must work together.

I was pleasantly surprised to observe a high level of cooperation and positive attitude among the speakers, in this conference which represented the government, the private industry and academia.

There is no doubt that we face challenges, huge challenges to be more precise. Competition will be much more aggressive and they will have more direct access to the FDA. In fact, the FDA is taking an interest in these markets and they will be opening offices in Costa Rica, India and China.

This shouldn’t scare us since we have a history of 65 years of tradition and experience, in words of Javier Vazquez Morales, executive director of Fomento. He said “it is very important that we understand what our value proposition is. One of the great advantages we have is 65 years of experience in manufacturing and 35 years in the pharmaceutical industry, and that has allowed us to develop a very effective and well trained human capital, which is very familiar with the FDA norms, quality and validity processes and that makes us much more competitive than other countries”.

He also mentioned that we have such good technicians and professionals here that we are actually exporting them to the FDA and to other countries, working in leadership positions in pharmaceutical, medical devices and manufacturing companies.

There are at present 16 new investment projects in the pipeline from pharmaceutical and medical devices companies which represent 187.4 million dollars and around 1,235 jobs. I want to be clear in saying that these projects are being negotiated at the present time and we are competing with other countries so it is not to be expected that we will win all of them, but I am sure we can get our fair share of them.

The important point is that we are in the game, we are in the map and we are competing against the best and doing it very successfully.


I told the executive director during the press conference after his speech that marketing is everything and that we may be very good at what we do, but if the world doesn’t know, it doesn’t help much how good we are. In other words, my specific question was “what king of marketing efforts are taking place in order for us to tell the world how good we are in this industry”?

He said that Law 73, an economics incentives law recently approved is a step in the right direction. He mentioned that the previous administration (I congratulate him in recognizing efforts by the previous government) did a road show selling the benefits of the new law and that this year other “road” shows will take place in international conventions and conferences in the bio scientific industry. They will be attending an important bio scientific competition in Atlanta on May 18th to the 25th with a booth, literature and what is more important, with well planned meetings and appointments with companies who are good prospects to open operations here in our island.

Norma Mejia, General Manager of Edwards Life Sciences mentioned that they are working hard in collaborating with the Association of Medical Devices member companies so that PRIDCO can participate in their October meeting in Washington D.C. in order to promote all the advantages that Puerto Rico offers those companies that are looking to open facilities outside of the United States.

Mr. Vazquez Morales also mentioned that there is a collaborative effort with John Hopkins in a bio process plant in Mayaguez, a plant that he says is unique. It is the first facility to do training and research with the collaboration of PRTEC, academia and the government. He said “I believe that the vision of inserting Puerto Rico in the knowledge economy is no longer a vision, we are already there and that is the message we have to deliver to everyone”

Right now Puerto Rico is the jurisdiction with the biggest concentration of bio scientific manufacturing industries in the world, per square mile and it generates 35,000 direct jobs. Manufacturing in general is still the main engine of the economy with over 100,000 direct jobs which represent around 40% of the Gross Domestic Product. It is also responsible for 99% of all our exports.

With so much internal fighting between political parties, the government, labor unions and everyone else, it is a breath of fresh air to see dedicated citizens looking for ways to improve our economy and help all of us beat the depression we are currently experiencing.