Frits Stulp (1972) is a persistent man. He finished his studies in Pharmaceutical Sciences on sheer willpower, and by daring to ask for help. His combativeness also took him far in his work. He has had a multifaceted career, and now he runs two companies. ‘There are a lot of opportunities in the Life Sciences for pharmaceutical chemists’
Scattered around his office, a dozen or so Star Wars figurines glare at us menacingly. Stulp: “You have to make your work a fun place to be, I think”. He works mostly from home, so we agreed to hold the interview there. Behind the couch hangs a large photograph of Stulp at Mesa Arch in America’s Canyonlands National Park. It was there that he came up with the idea to set up his own company for project management, so he named the company after the park: Mesa Arch Consulting. Since then, he and a business partner have also set up a second firm; Iperion Life Sciences Consultancy. And business is booming: over the past two years, they’ve gone from a staff of two to 21.
‘In my work, I’m focused on both the substance – the chemistry itself – as well as project management and consulting’
What is it you do at Iperion?“I help pharmaceutical companies and regulators to adapt their systems and processes to ISO IDMP. That’s a new international standard for identifying and describing medications. It tells what compounds a certain medicine contains, and their exact composition. In my work, I’m focused on both the substance – the chemistry itself – as well as project management and consulting But I also lead my team of consultants and give workshops and training courses.”
Did you know from a young age that you wanted to go into the pharmaceutical sector? “No, I was interested in a lot of things, and I had both science and humanities courses at school. When it came time to choose a degree programme, I went to the open days for Law, Classical Languages, Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, which was then called ‘Pharmacochemistry’. I chose the latter because it offered a combination of exact chemistry and biology, so you not only learn about the substances themselves, but also what they do in the body. And the course materials were challenging enough that I thought: I can really sink my teeth into this.”
What did you think of your studies? “I never regretted my choice, and it taught me to be a good analytical thinker. In my work, I’ve noticed that I have a knack for reducing complex problems to their core, when other people get stuck. But the curriculum was still very tough. For the first two years, I failed a third of the courses, and I hit a wall at the end when I wrote my final report. But I would joke to myself: ‘I may not know much, but I definitely won’t quit.’ At one point, I found a part-time job to give my life more structure, and I asked one of my professors, Prof. Timmerman, for advice. He suggested that I ask Prof. Henk van der Goot to be my thesis supervisor. Van der Goot guided me patiently through each chapter of my thesis, and eventually I managed to earn my degree.”
‘I always start from scratch, and that’s often difficult in the beginning’
You found a job almost immediately after graduation. How did that happen? “In my part-time job, I worked with ISO quality control standards. That brought me into contact with business issues, like: how can you guarantee quality in an organisation? And how can you make processes run more efficiently? That business aspect really appealed to me. Professor Timmerman suggested that I talk to the pharmaceutical company Yamanouchi. They in turn referred me to the Quality Manager, who needed me like he needed a hole in his head. I didn’t have the knowledge he was looking for. He was about to send me away, but I said defiantly: ‘If you do, then I’ll never learn it!’ He appreciated that attitude, so he offered me an internship, and then after a month, I got a permanent contract.”
Your career has been extremely diverse: you’ve worked as a quality control assistant, a manager and a consultant. How did you make your choices along the way? “Until I started Iperion, I had never been guided by a conscious goal. Since my interests were always so broad, I knew that I would never be able to settle for just the substance of the work. In the end, I was mainly guided by my desire to learn new things, and I found that I was really more of a generalist than a specialist. When I was asked to become a manager at Yamanouchi (now Astellas), I said yes, and that’s how I got into consultancy. They might seem like a lot of unrelated steps in my CV, but in the end all of those experiences and interests come together in Iperion.”
What was it like to dive into a new field over and over again? “I always started from scratch, and that’s often difficult in the beginning. For example, at Accenture I was immediately thrown into the deep end, and it took me months to find my way. I even received a negative recommendation after my probationary period. But I kept at it, and I attended internal training courses. They were all international, and I enjoyed getting acquainted with so many different people and cultures. That gave me the energy I needed to persevere, and I eventually found my own rhythm. I’m also a bit of a workaholic, and that helped. When I was still working at Astellas, I pushed myself too far, and I had a burn-out. I couldn’t do anything anymore. My body just wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. From that, I learned that I can’t do everything, and since then I’ve been able to hold myself back when I notice that I’ve taken on too much.”
‘There are a lot of opportunities in the Life Sciences for pharmaceutical chemists’
Do you have any advice for current and future students? “I think that it’s increasingly important to look beyond the scientific aspects alone. Over the past 10, 15 years, fewer and fewer ground-breaking drugs have been discovered. That makes it more difficult to earn a return on the investment, so we’ll have to come up with new earning models. I would also recommend that students look farther than just pharmaceutical sciences. There are a lot of opportunities in the Life Sciences for young pharmaceutical chemists, thanks in part to the fact that there are all sorts of sports apps and devices, such as armbands, that produce ever-more data. At Iperion, we are expanding our work to areas such as nutrition. Our knowledge about managing product information is just as useful to food producers as it is to pharmaceutical companies. By the way, we regularly have openings for recent graduates. So if you’re an ambitious student with a talent for consulting, and if you want to work with regulations, efficiency and safety, then we’d love to hear from you!”
Start-ups wanted: Iperion is always looking for scientists who have made a unique discovery and want to use it to start a new company. Stulp: “We ensure that the applications of their invention meet all of the applicable regulations, so that they can concentrate on the substance.”
CONTENTBLOK ONTBREEKT WORDT NOG TOEGEVOEGD!!!
