Where incepra® comes from
Our story brings together three paths: a scientist’s curiosity about the compounds found in plants, a Dutch pioneer’s search for nutritional support within a broader approach to health, and a new generation that drew on that legacy to design habits and nutritional support together, as one system, from the start.
A discovery that opened new questions
1947 to 1948 - Professor Jack Masquelier was the first to isolate OPCs, a family of compounds found in plants, and described his findings in his doctoral thesis.
Over the decades that followed, he continued to investigate their properties, developing extracts from maritime pine bark and grape seed. His work became the scientific foundation we still build on today.
1978
Nutritional support within a broader approach
In the Netherlands, investigative journalist and documentary maker Bert Schwitters encountered the use of vitamins as nutritional supplements through his research.
His curiosity grew into a business that would become Orthica, making him one of the pioneers of the Dutch supplement market. He worked especially with naturopathic practitioners, who integrated supplementation with nutrition, lifestyle and attention to the whole person.
For Bert, the value of a nutrient belonged within that wider picture.
Going to the source
1989 - His continuing search for meaningful nutrients for the Dutch market brought Bert to Masquelier’s work. In 1989 he sought out the professor’s company, CEP, himself.
A direct relationship developed with Masquelier and the science behind his extracts. In 1994 Bert’s company, INC, took over CEP. With the professor’s recognition and consent, MASQUELIER’s® grew as the brand for his extracts.
Through books and documentaries, Bert helped bring Masquelier’s research to a wider audience, sharing the scientist’s discoveries and his lasting mark on our understanding of health. Their relationship combined scientific curiosity with the wish to make knowledge useful in practice.
In 2005 Bert and his company became one of the first extract suppliers in the supplement industry to authenticate the complete extract, using NMR fingerprinting to examine its full profile. It helps keep quality consistent despite natural variation and a changing climate.
2010 – 2019
Understanding the wider picture
By 2010 we were exploring other scientifically valuable nutrients within the Mediterranean dietary pattern and had developed a targeted nutrition concept. Our understanding of OPCs drew us towards the relationships between nutrients and their place within a broader way of eating and living.
In 2011 Bert handed the company and responsibility for it to his son Pim Schwitters and to Arnold de Vries. Together with the team, they deepened longstanding partnerships with supplement brands across the United States, the Asia-Pacific region and Europe. The quality of the extracts, accumulated knowledge and close working relationships helped those partnerships grow.
At the same time, we found it harder to establish new partnerships around that broader view. Much of the market was moving towards products for separate problems, supported by increasingly specific promises. Our interest remained in how the body works as a connected whole.
In 2019 we brought our research together in a single dossier to make that knowledge more visible, with the role of Masquelier’s OPCs in normal microvascular function at its centre.
2020 – 2022
Returning to the whole person
During the COVID period, we noticed renewed interest in the relationships between everyday life, nutrition and health. It resonated with the holistic approach that had shaped Bert’s early work.
For us, it also brought a longstanding question into sharper focus: how could we remain faithful to that original thought when developing something new?
We wanted to bring our knowledge closer to people’s lived experience, to the choices they make, the circumstances they live with and the changes they want to explore. That meant considering behaviour and nutritional support together from the beginning. From 2022 the team grew around that ambition, bringing experience in healthcare and nutrition, product development and brand building, and a close eye on how people actually live.
2023 – 2024
Bringing the knowledge together
In 2023 we integrated Mindmints, a Dutch business that had developed experience in behaviour and targeted nutritional support. Its knowledge became part of our organisation.
Our collaboration with Medstone Science followed in 2024. Through co-intelligence, in which a validated AI model structures published research and human experts interpret it, we brought together our accumulated knowledge to develop a more integrated approach.
Together, these developments gave us the basis to build from the ground up: behaviour and targeted nutritional support, developed around the same area of everyday health.
Today · incepra®
incepra® takes shape around life themes that people can recognise in their own lives. Each brings together a habit-building journal and targeted nutritional support, designed together as one system in which the habits come first.
The habit-building journal offers space to notice patterns, reflect and explore changes that are meaningful to you. The nutritional support brings our understanding of biology into that same context.
incepra®’s foundation, part of the nutritional support in every life theme, includes MASQUELIER’s® Original OPCs from grape seed and MASQUELIER’s® French Pine Bark Extract. incepra® carries forward the discovery, the work of the people behind it and their commitment to quality, giving that legacy a new expression for life today.
How you live, what you do and what you take all have a place. incepra® offers building blocks to help you explore those connections and shape your own way forward.