EVEREST is guided by a global executive steering committee (ESC) and implemented locally by a group of expert rheumatologists (local ESC)
The global ESC advises AbbVie on the overall EVEREST initiative, whereas local ESCs support countries in the local implementation, e.g. with selecting, localizing, applying and evaluating the T2T toolkits, as well as provide feedback on the program and deliverables to the global ESC.
Global executive steering committee (ESC) members
Doug White, BSc(Hons), MBChB(Hons), DipMSM, MRCP(UK), FRACP, MBA
Rheumatologist
Affiliation: Glenview Medical Centre, Hamilton, New Zealand
Doug White is a Hamilton based Rheumatologist, who offers a thorough, personalised and expert care of inflammatory rheumatic disorders, including autoimmune inflammatory disorders, crystal arthritis, connective tissue disorders, osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia. He holds post-graduate qualifications in musculoskeletal medicine and paediatric rheumatology and trained in centres in the UK and Australia.
His approach is patient-focused and he work hard to explain these complex conditions in a way his patients understand. He is passionate about the use of technology and new media in healthcare and have developed materials for patients and healthcare providers to improve understanding of rheumatic diseases. He believes that research is an integral part of providing good care and he has contributed to numerous national and international research projects. He has been the Honorary Secretary of the New Zealand Rheumatology Association, and is a current member of the Rheumatology Audit Partnership New Zealand and a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
Louis Bessette, MD, MSc
Associate professor
Affiliation: Laval University, Centre de l'ostéoporose et de rhumatologie de Québec, Canada
Louis Bessette completed his medical training in Rheumatology at Laval University, Quebec, Canada in 1993. From 1994 to 1996, he received a formation in clinical research at the Multipurpose Arthritis Center of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. During the same period, he completed a Master's degree in Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston. Dr Bessette is Co-Director for Quebec City CaMos, a Canadian epidemiologic study in osteoporosis. He is also the Program Officer for the Quebec Recognizing Osteoporosis and its Consequences (ROCQ) Program. He is the past director of the rheumatology training program at Laval University, where he is currently Assistant Professor, and he is currently Head of the Rheumatology Department at the CHU de Quebec. His major research interests include rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, quality of life aspect of musculoskeletal diseases, and pharmacoeconomic studies.
Maya H Buch, MD, PhD, FRCP
Professor of Rheumatology
Affiliation: University of Manchester, UK
Maya Buch is Professor of Rheumatology and Director of Experimental Medicine, Centre for Musculoskeletal Research at the University of Manchester and NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre, Manchester, UK, having moved from the University of Leeds, Leeds, UK where she retains a visiting professor position. Professor Buch has established a clinical translational and experimental research program in rheumatoid arthritis and targeted therapies, and cardiovascular pathology in immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. She directs a broad research portfolio spanning clinical trials and complex observational investigation to experimental studies. She has additional clinical and research interests in the rare disease, scleroderma.
Gerd Rüdiger Burmester, MD
Professor of Medicine
Affiliation: Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany
Gerd R. Burmester is an enduring leader in Rheumatoid Arthritis. In the late 1970’s, Burmester came to the USA for a postdoctoral research fellowship at Rockefeller University in New York City, New York. For the past 27 years, he has been Professor of Medicine at Berlin’s Charité University Clinic and in 1993 was appointed the Chair of Rheumatology and Immunology. He is currently among the university’s longest standing professors and heads a 100-strong department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology. He and his team are researching how to reprogram the human immune system, with an emphasis on the molecular pathways that underpin autoimmunity across many diseases, especially in rheumatoid arthritis. He serves on several editorial boards and is the Associate Editor of the EULAR Journal, the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. From 2015-2017, he was the President of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR), the world’s largest Rheumatology Organization, where he has strengthened the educational efforts with a successful EUALR School of Rheumatology. Burmester has also previously held the Presidency for German Society of Rheumatology and is the President of the Board of Trustees of FOREUM. He is also the co-author of a Lancet Series paper on new treatment strategies in Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Ennio Giulio Favalli, MD
Professor of Rheumatology
Affiliation: Gaetano Pini Institute, Italy
Ennio Favalli is Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Milan, Milan, Italy, having completed his degree in Medicine and Surgery at Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan. He is currently the Head and responsible for implementation and management of the G. Pini Institute Early Arthritis and Spondyloarthritis Clinic, Milan, treating rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and ankylosing spondylitis with biotechnological drugs, ultrasound evaluation, and US-guided joint injection. Professor Favalli has also been a member of the board of the Lombardy Rheumatology Network (LORHEN) since 2005, and member of the Scientific Committee of the Gruppo Italiano per lo Studio delle Early Arthritis (GISEA) since 2013.
Laure Gossec, MD, PhD
Professor of Rheumatology
Affiliation: Sorbonne Université and Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France
Professor Gossec earned her medical degree and her specialty training in Rheumatology at Paris Descartes University, Paris, and earned her PhD in Clinical Epidemiology from Montpellier University, Montpellier, France. She has a half-time clinical position where she mainly treats patients with inflammatory arthritis, and a half-time teaching and research position. In her teaching role in her university, she has set up a 25-hour module for medical students on patient–physician relationship and shared decision-making. In her research time, Professor Gossec’s interest is clinical research, in particular outcomes research and epidemiologic research, with a focus on outcome measures for clinical trials and clinical practice, and treatment algorithms, in rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and spondyloarthritis.
Andrew Östör, MD, MA, MB BS, FRACP, FRCP, FRCP (Edin)
A/Professor of Rheumatology
Affiliation: Cabrini Medical Centre, Monash University, Australia
A/Prof Andrew Östör is a Consultant Rheumatologist at Cabrini Medical Centre, Monash University and Principal Investigator at Emeritus Research, Melbourne. His research interests include early inflammatory arthritis, biologic and novel treatments for rheumatic diseases, clinical trials, RA associated lung disease, rheumatic manifestations of checkpoint inhibitors and disorders of the shoulder joint.
Ricardo Xavier, MD, PhD
Professor of Rheumatology
Affiliation: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
Ricardo M. Xavier graduated from the Medical School at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he currently holds a faculty position as Professor of Medicine. He completed his training in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology at the Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil, and the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA, USA. Professor Xavier has a doctorate degree in Immunology from the Shimane Medical University, Shimane, Japan, where he studied regulatory T cells and cytokines. After this international training period, Professor Xavier returned to the Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, where he has been Head of the Serviço de Patologia Clínica and Head of the Serviço de Reumatologia for 8 years. He has published >100 peer-reviewed articles in the field of rheumatology, mainly related to pathophysiology, genetics, and clinical aspects of autoimmune diseases.
Tsutomu Takeuchi, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine
Affiliation: Keio University School of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, Clinical Immunology, Department of Internal Medicine,Tokyo, Japan
Tsutomu Takeuch iis Vice-President at Keio University and Professor of Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at Keio University School of Medicine. He has studied abroad including the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in the US, and in 1986, accepted a position as Associate Professor on the Faculty of Medicine at Saitama Medical School. Prior to being promoted to Vice-Dean in 2004, he served as Assistant Professor and Professor at Saitama Medical School from 1989 and 1998, respectively. In 2009, Dr. Takeuchi was appointed the Keio University Professor at the School of Medicine. Additionally, he serves as Visiting Professor at Saitama Medical School and as Visiting Associate Professor at Tokyo Dental College (School of Medicine), Tokyo Medical and Dental University (Medical Research Institute). He also serves as Chairperson of the Committee on International Affairs for the Japan College of Rheumatology.
Ziga Rotar, MD, PhD
Senior consultant, Assist. Prof., Head of Dept of rheumatology
Affiliation: University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Slovenia
Assist Prof Ziga Rotar is the current head of the Department of Rheumatology at the University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia, and the president of the Slovenian Medical Association – Section of Rheumatology/Slovensko zdravniško društvo – Revmatološka sekcija. He has been involved in real world evidence collection and analyses in patients with inflammatory arthritides treated with targeted therapies since 2006 as the co-author and administrator of the biorx.si registry and collaborator in several international research groups, e.g., CERERRA, TOCERRA, JAK-POT, and EuroSpA.
Hanan al-Rayes, MD
Senior Consultant Rheumatology and Lupus
Affiliation: Prince Sultan Military Medical, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Dr. Hanan Al Rayes has Rheumatology and lupus fellowship from University of Toronto and Rheumatology fellowship from Saudi Arabia. She was a President of Saudi Society for Rheumatology between 2018 and 2021. Currently she is a deputy Director of Medicine department, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Chairperson of evidence-based medicine clinical guidelines and also a Board Member in Saudi Osteoporosis Society (since 2009) and in Medical job Recruitment committee of all Saudi Military Hospital (since 2010). She conducts research in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology, with a current project focusing on the genetics of lupus.
Inna Gaydukova, MD, PhD
Professor of Rheumatology
Affiliation: North-Western State Medical University, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation.
Scientific interests of Prof. Gaydukova include problems of co-morbidities in spondyloarthritis, problems of bone turnover in nr-axSpA and AS, and problems of pain pathogenesis in patients with spine disorders. In 2011 as an ASAS fellow I. Gaydukova performed a research project in Charité, University of Berlin (ASAS grant). Later, as ASAS member dr. Gaydukova participated in ASAS Health index validation, ASAS Flare project, Reflap study and in development of standards of ax-SpA management. In Russia Dr. Gaydukova works under educational programs and schools for physicians’ and patients. Dr. Gaydukova was awarded by the Society of patients with Bekhterew's disease for educational activity. As member of Russian spondyloarthritis’ group dr. Gaydukova made the major contribution in development of Russian terminology of SpA, and SpA classification. Dr. Gaydukova with colleagues performed Russian-language translation, adaptation and validation of some assessment tools for ax-SpA patients (EQ-5L, ASAS HI). Dr. Gaydukova with co-authors published Russian version of definition of remission and Russian guidelines of NSAIDs and Вiologics’ administration in ax-SpA. Dr.Gaydukova has more than 256 publications, including 104 articles in the central Russian journals, 99 articles in the Russian Scientific citation index, 11 articles in European journals, 32 articles in the journals of the SCOPUS, Web of Science and PUBMED databases. Dr. Gaydukova is the copyright holder and the author of 7 databases, developed on the basis of Progress and Ladoga registers (obtained certificates of Russian Patent Agency).
José António Pereira da Silva, MD, PhD
Professor of Rheumatology
Affiliation: University of Coimbra, Portugal
Prof. Pereira da Silva received his MD. from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Coimbra in 1982 and his Ph.D. in Medicine/Rheumatology from the University of London in 1993, with a thesis dedicated to the study of sex hormone influence upon inflammation-induced cartilage degradation. He is currently Full Professor of Medicine and Rheumatology at the University of Coimbra, and Head of the Rheumatology Department at the University Hospital of Coimbra. He has a longstanding dedication to Medical Education, consolidated in his activities as Chairman of EULAR Standing Committee for Education and Training (from 2001 to 2005) and President of the European Board of Rheumatology from 2006 to 2010. He has published over 180 papers in National and International peer-reviewed journal and currently serves in the Editorial Board of several scientific journals in the area of Rheumatology. His current research interests are especially focused in Osteoporosis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Fibromyalgia and the psychological domains of rheumatic diseases. He especially prides himself on being an educator and a practicing clinician dedicated to translating research into the best possible practice to the benefit of patients.
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ABBV-BH-00081-MC approved on September 2023