Scientific Advisors

Nitec has established a scientific advisory board providing additional research and development expertise relevant to the Company’s business. The Scientific Advisory Board meets periodically with the scientific and development personnel as well as with the Company’s management to discuss Nitec’s present and long-term research and development activities. Scientific Advisory Board members include:

Rieke Alten, has been a consultant in Rheumatology in New Mowagat Hospital in Kuwait since October 2003. Dr. Alten served as vice president of the Medical Chamber Berlin, as president of the German Society of Psychosomatic Medicine in Rheumatology and is a member of the Institute for Approval of Drugs for the Ministry of Health of the Government of Germany.

Johannes Bijlsma, is Professor and Head of the Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands. Prof. Bijlsma specialises in neuro-endocrine immune aspects of rheumatic diseases and osteoarthritis. He published over 350 articles in recognized international journals and is author and co-author of different books in the field of rheumatology. He also serves on the editorial boards of several journals specialised in rheumatic diseases. Prof. Bijlsma was president of the Dutch Society for Rheumatology from 1996-1999 where he now serves as chairman consilium. Prof. Bijlsma is also a member of the British Society for Rheumatology and the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.

Maarten Boers, is Professor and until August 2007, was Chairman of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam. He regularly serves on governmental, charity, and commercial national and international advisory boards mostly focusing on trial design and analysis, efficacy, safety and economic issues. The main focus of the department he heads has been the methodological support of research design and analysis, and education in medical school and beyond. Steady expansion has recently allowed the department to initiate its own research projects. In 2005, members of the Department had (co)authored over 150 papers.

Frank Buttgereit, is senior consultant and deputy head of Rheumatology & Clinical Immunology at the Charité in Berlin/Germany, where he has been Professor of Rheumatology since 2002. Dr. Buttgereit is internationally recognised for his work on the mechanisms of glucocorticoid actions and on bioenergetics of immune functions. The latter issue focuses on questions of how energy (namely ATP) production and consumption is relevant for the functioning of important immune cells such as lymphocytes or monocytes, which is of special interest in arthritic joint or in fracture healing. He has been acting as principal investigator in a variety of clinical studies on the effects of anti-inflammatory agents in patients with rheumatic disease.

Maurizio Cutolo, MD, is Professor at the University of Genova/Italy. He is also Director of the Research Laboratories and Clinical Academic Unit of Rheumatology and Director of the Academic Postgraduate School of Rheumatology at the University of Genova. As a past Vice President of the Italian Society for Rheumatology. Prof. Cutolo was also a Member of the Scientific Committee of EULAR (2004-2007) and is the the Vice President of the International Society for Neuroimmunomodulation (ISNIM) (2005-2008). He also co-founded (1999) and is the Past-Chairman of the Study Group on Neuroendocrine Immunology (NEI) at the American College of Rheumatology. Prof. Cutolo is Advisory Editor of Arthritis Rheumatism and an associate editor of the Journal Clinical and Exp. Rheumatology.

Hartmut Derendorf, is Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutics at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy in Gainesville. Prof. Derendorf has published over 300 scientific publications and given over 650 presentations at national or international meetings. He has published six textbooks in English and German. He is one of the editors of the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Die Pharmazie and Associate Editor for J. Clin. Pharmacol. He is a member of the Editorial Board of several other journals. His research interests include the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of corticosteroids, analgesics and antibiotics as well as drug interactions. Next to several other awards, Prof. Derendorf won the Faculty Award of the University of Utrecht in 2005. He is currently President (2006/08) of ACCP and past-President (2004/06) of the International Society of Anti-infective Pharmacology (ISAP). He is a Fellow of AAPS and ACCP, and member of APhA, FPA, DPhG, ASCPT and AACP. Prof. Derendorf is also a member of the Nutrition and Therapeutics Committee of the NASA Space Medicine Program.

Daniel E. Furst, is the first Carl M. Pearson Professor of Medicine at the Universitiy of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Medical Center, David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumataology. Dr. Furst has been on a number of national committees concerned with rheumatic therapeutics, including a member of and fellowship in the American College of Rheumatology and The American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics. He has also been a member of the Arthritis Committee for the FDA. He has served or is serving on the editorial boards of Inpharma, Clinical Drug Investigation, Drugs, The Journal of Clinical Rheumatology, and The Journal of Rheumatology. Additionally, he is an editorial reviewer for professional publications including Arthritis & Rheumatism, The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Pharmacotherapy, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, and The Journal of Rheumatology.

John Richard Kirwan, BSc, MD, FRCP is Consultant Rheumatologist and Professor of Rheumatic Diseases at the University of Bristol, England. Prof. Kirwan coordinated the team that first showed unequivocally that glucocorticoids are able to hinder the progress of rheumatoid arthritis. Now Head of the Academic Unit in Bristol, his research interests continue to centre on glucocorticoids and relate to new types of glucocorticoid treatment and how they interact with the disease process. He is also investigating the timing of glucocorticoid therapy, based on an ongoing programme of exploration of abnormalities of the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis in rheumatoid arthritis and of the circadian variations in cytokines and cortisone.

Kenneth G. Saag, MD, MSc, is Associate Professor at the Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, Birmingham/AL/USA and Professor at the Department of Medicine and Epidemiology (Secondary appointment), University of Alabama at Birmingham/AL/USA. Prof. Saag is also the Director of the Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERTs) of Musculoskeletal Disorders of the University of Alabama and also Associate Director of the Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Center of the University of Alabama. Since 1997, Kenneth G. Saag has been on the Editorial Board of Arthritis Care and Research and since 2007 he is on the Editorial Board of Archive Internal Medicine. In 2005, Prof. received the Max Cooper Research Award.