Affiliate activities are focused on member education. “We try to do two educational sessions each year,” says Dr. Park. “For our session this spring, we are going to invite a global lecturer from ISPE and our topic will be GAMP® 5. For our fall session, we expect to cover biopharmaceuticals, like gene therapy and cell therapy.”
The affiliate has also established a Q&A forum to discuss challenges in the workplace. “Whenever anyone asks a question, our Board members, who are experts in various areas, can provide an answer in an expert way,” says Dr. Park.
Additionally, the affiliate translates selected articles from Pharmaceutical Engineering® into Korean as a benefit to members. “We don’t cover everything, just several articles,” says Dr. Park. “We also translate the guidelines or baselines, but we don’t share those; we only use them for the educational material.”
Looking forward, Dr. Park hopes to further develop the affiliate’s activities and grow membership. “At the moment, we only do two educational sessions; we don’t do any exhibitions or any other activities,” she says. “In Korea, all of the Board members are volunteers who are actively involved in their own work, and so at this moment the two educational sessions are enough for us to prepare.
“Early on, we planned for broader activities for the ISPE affiliate, but it is very difficult to get sponsorship and volunteers,” Dr. Park continues. “But we have to find a solution. Three years ago, our president changed to Dr. Ducksang Kim. He and I expect to participate in the [ISPE] Annual Meeting this year, and we’re trying to find out how to expand our affiliate activities, how to promote more members, how to do more exhibitions or education sessions. But we have to plan carefully. We are considering who is going to help and who is going to sponsor—all of those things. These are the answers we need to find.”
