History

Dear colleagues,

It all started in May 1997, on the occasion of a nice sociable dinner during the 10th World Congress on In-vitro Fertilization and Assisted Reproduction in Vancouver. After an animated discussion, a group of European, Japanese and American private IVF specialists came to the conclusion that the existing societies for sterility, reproduction and embryology were dominated by representatives of university and government centers. In spite of the fact that private Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) centers often produced the best results, they were usually underrepresented in these official committees.

Private centers are driven by marketing and economic considerations in trying to attract their patients through high standard services. Financed by their own resources and not significantly dependent neither on the government, nor on pharmaceutical companies, they make a considerable contribution to world-wide research of reproductive medicine.

For these reasons, we decided to found a worldwide association of private-assisted reproductive technology clinics and laboratories, with biologists and embryologists - who are to a large amount responsible for our success - being duly represented. Our newly-founded association met from the beginning on with high international interest and positive reception.

Our association aims at achieving the following goals: exchange of experiences and information; and organization of international meetings.

We would like to invite all of you who are interested in private ART to join our society.