I am delighted to welcome you to PCI’s FY24 Year in Review, my first as Managing Director.  I had the privilege of joining the PCI team eight years ago, and I am both honored and excited to take on my new role with the organization. As many of you are aware, PCI’s former Managing Director, Dr. John Swartley, was promoted to Penn’s inaugural Chief Innovation Officer at the end of calendar year 2023, and PCI looks forward to continued active collaboration with John in his new role.  This year we celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the formation of PCI, which represents an opportunity to look back and reflect on PCI’s critical role in supporting Penn’s ascent into the top ranks of universities leading in innovation and global impact. I am eager to lead and support the PCI team in further building on the successes we have achieved over the past decade under John’s steadfast and visionary leadership.  

PCI’s accomplishments over the past ten years are truly impressive, having advanced from 24^th to 1^st in the national rankings by annual licensing income, executing over 7,000 commercialization agreements, facilitating over $1B in Sponsored Research funding, and supporting more than 300 startup formations based on Penn technologies and expertise. The strength of these commercialization activities is at its foundation attributable to the groundbreaking research conducted by Penn’s faculty, staff, students and other researchers, their drive to address and solve real-world problems, and their many entrepreneurial accomplishments. Of note, Penn was recently placed #2 nationally on the ‘Ignition Schools’ list by Fast Company and its sibling publication Inc., an inaugural ranking of the “top academic institutions that play an enormous role in shaping the businesses that influence society”. 

Inside this report you will learn more about the many ways that PCI helps to catalyze engagement with industry and the investor community to support commercialization activity and translational impact at Penn. There were enough impactful stories to select from this year to fill this report many times over.  Thus, our main goal in this report is to highlight the broad range of activities contributing to this output across a variety of fields with connections to many of Penn’s schools and centers 

The report illustrates and exemplifies the productivity of PCI, but behind each success there is group of individuals whose hard work and dedication helped make it possible. The entire PCI team deserves my deep gratitude for their critical contributions. I also want to extend my sincere thanks to our outstanding clients and collaborators, and the steadfast and long-standing support from Penn’s executive leadership, board of trustees, and leadership of the Penn schools we support.  However, none of these accomplishments could have happened without the outstanding discoveries and inventions generated every day by Penn faculty and other innovators across Penn, their desire to connect and collaborate with the commercial sector, and their entrepreneurial achievements.  The PCI team and I look forward to continuing to collaborate with you in the coming year. 

Benjamin Dibling, PhD 
Associate Vice Provost and Managing Director of the Penn Center for Innovation