Welcome to the ISPE Netherlands Affiliate

The roots for the establishment of the Dutch affiliate of ISPE go back to the very first ISPE European congress as organized in Brussels in 1988.

Quite a few people from the Netherlands attended that congress and were caught by the ISPE-spirit and ambitions. After some time Maarten Muis, Reijer Blokland, Paul Kamstra and Simon Arnoldussen got together and decided to found ISPE-NL: “The Dutch Affiliate”. Peter Smit, who also attended Brussels-1988 joined later and served as the Affiliates treasurer for many years.

Happily surprised by the high quality, the original and interesting content presented, a first spark of interest in the ISPE organisation and activities was ignited above the Dutch pharmaceutical landscape. It was the era in which Dutch Health Authorities started to pay special attention to validation & qualification and Dutch based pharmaceutical companies made plans for further developing the US market for their products. In addition, the first bio-pharmaceutical start-ups were established in The Netherlands.

It was recognised that these developments required more interaction between companies active in the field of pharmaceutical manufacture, both on a local and global level, to exchange information and share experiences. The ISPE organisation provided an excellent platform to satisfy this need. Ultimately in 1990, the ISPE Dutch affiliate was officially established. That the Dutch affiliate indeed filled a gap was evidenced by the rapid growth of the affiliate.

Currently ISPE-NL has well over three hundred fifty members and over forty events have been organized, the major part of which are afternoon programs consisting of theme presentations combined with a plant tour.

Maarten Muis, who was among the founding fathers of the Netherlands Affiliate in 1990 presently still serves as the secretary of the Dutch Affiliate Board. For his untiring guidance, dedication and concern to this society he was selected Member Of the Year at ISPE's Annual Meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1992.

Last year, in 2005, the ISPE-NL celebrated its fifteenth anniversary. At this occasion a very successful seminar on PAT (Process Analytical Technology) was organised.

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