Editorial Team

Pharmacology advisor

Albín Chaves, Costa Rica

Dr. Albín Chávez is a physician, specialized in internal medicine and clinical pharmacology (Mario Negri Institute in Italy, Autonomous University of Barcelona). Until 2000 he was a resident and member of the panel of experts in International Health, in the Division of Drug Information of the United States Pharmacopeia.

During the 2003-2004 biennium he chaired the Drug Utilization Study Group (DURG-LA) and in 2004 he chaired the Sub-Committee of Drug Utilization of the Clinical Pharmacology Division of the International Union of Pharmacology (IUPHAR).

Dr. Chávez has worked as a pharmaceutical consultant in several countries under the sponsorship of PAHO, WHO, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the UN Industrial Development Program. Until 2018 he was a member of the Pharmaceutical Commission of Central America and the Dominican Republic.

He was the head of the Directorate of Pharmacoepidemiology and Coordinator of the Central Committee of Pharmacotherapy of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS). He has been a professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the School of Medicine and of Pharmacoeconomics at the School of Economics of the University of Costa Rica.

He has delivered lectures in multiple congresses in Latin America, Europe and the United States, and his research has been published in prestigious journals.

Until 2006 he was a member of the Group of Experts on Drug Evaluation of the World Health Organization (WHO), and since 2013 he is a member of the Committee of Experts for the incorporation of drugs into the Strategic Fund of the Pan American Health Organization. Health.

Clinical Trial Advisor

José Humberto Duque, Colombia

Dr. José Humberto Duque graduated in philosophy and letters from the Universidad Pontífica Bolivariana in 1970 and in 1981 received his medical degree from the University of Antioquia. He was awarded diplomas in Clinical Bioethics and Research Bioethics, and studied in the health administration master program of the Universidad Pontificia Javeriana 1985-1986.

During his long professional career, he has held the following positions: Technical Health Coordinator of Antioquia, Director of the National Hospital Fund (Ministry of Health), Quality of Care Director of the San Vicente de Paul University Hospital and General Director of the Bolivarian University Clinic.

Dr. Duque has headed several NGOs working on health and has been a member of various Institutional Review Boards in hospitals and Universities. He has taught bioethics, professional ethics, clinical management, and public health in master programs of several Colombian universities.

His publications include articles on clinical bioethics, and he is the editor and co-author of the book “Controversies in Clinical Bioethics”.

Pharmaceutical Policy and Access Advisor

Carlos Durán, Ecuador

Carlos E. Durán (1981) is an Ecuadorian medical doctor with experience in the fields of Drug Utilization Research, Public Health, Pharmaceutical Policy, and Therapeutic Information to Prescribers. He got his doctoral degree at Ghent University, Belgium. Since 2021, he holds a position as Assistant Professor in the department of Data Science & Biostastistics at Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care at University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands. In the department, he is part of a team of researchers, statisticians, and programmers conducting pharmacoepidemiological studies of large electronic healthcare databases. As associate researcher, he is also affiliated with the Think Tank Medicines, Information and Power at National University of Colombia. For the last 14 years, he has been the Editor-in-chief of the Ecuadorian Green Book of Medicines, an independent therapeutic formulary. He served as Deputy Minister of Health in Ecuador.

Clinical Trial Advisor

Juan Erviti, España

Juan Erviti is a doctor in Pharmacy specialized in Hospital Pharmacy, with work experience as a clinical pharmacist. In 2003 Dr. Erviti was appointed Head of the Area of Drug Information and Advice in the National Health System-Osakidteza (National Health Services of the Basque Country SNS-O).

From 2002 to 2017, Dr. Erviti was editor of the Navarra Therapeutic Information Bulletin (2003-2017), and from 2004 to 2014 Vice President of the Ethics Committee for Clinical Trials of Navarra (2004-2014). Between 2012 and 2016 he was the Secretary General of the International Society of Drug Bulletins (ISDB), an international organization that houses many of the most well-known independent drug bulletins.

He currently works in the Innovation and Organization Section of the SNS-O and is responsible for a research group belonging to the Health Research Institute of Navarra (Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Navarra IdiSNA), and is the Director of the Navarra Cochrane Center.

His research activity is focused on pharmacoepidemiology and systematic reviews. His publications include more than 50 articles in high-impact medical journals. He has also directed 5 doctoral dissertation and in 9/2020-9/2021 was a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Policy Advisor

Eduardo Espinoza, El Salvador

Graduated with honors from the Medical School of the University of El Salvador in 1974 (public university). Earned his master’s in public health from the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua and the University of El Salvador. He has been University Professor and Professor-Researcher in Health Systems and Policies.

Chief of medical services for the FMLN insurgent army and the civilian population in conflict areas, 1976-1992, Dean of the School of Medicine, University of El Salvador, 1995-1999. Vice Minister for Health Policies at the Ministry of Health of El Salvador, 2009-2019, Founder of the Master in Public Health and the Master in Sexual and Reproductive Health at the School of Medicine, University of El Salvador, and Founder and Member of the academic faculty of the Universidad Internacional para la Salud de los Pueblos (UISP) 2000-present.

Currently, he is Coordinator of the ALAMES MARGARITA POSADA Collective in El Salvador and Member of the General Coordination of the Latin American Association of Social Medicine and Population Health (ALAMES) 2018-to date.

Pharmacology Advisor

Rogelio Fernández Argüelles, México

Graduate of the University of Habana (Cuba) in Pharmaceutical Sciences, and specialist in statistical quality control of the Centro Nacional para la Enseñanza de la Normalización de Cuba. He worked for the Cuban pharmaceutical industry in the production of liquid treatments and was deputy director of the Research Center for the Development of Pharmacoepidemiology (CDF) of the Ministry of Public Health in Cuba. In the year 2000 he became professor in Basic and Clinical Pharmacology at the Medical School of the Autonomous University of Nayarit (Mexico), where he is the Coordinator for Research and Graduate Studies. Vice-president of the Drug Utilization Research Group LatinAmerica (DURG-LA) 2010-2014. Director of the journal Waxapa, published by the Autonomous University of Nayarit. He has published numerous articles on pharmaceutical sciences and education in peer-reviewed and indexed journals. He has taught courses and made presentations on issues related to pharmaceuticals at universities and institutions of Latin American and European countries.

Drug Publicity and Promotion Advisor

Adriane Fugh-Berman, EE UU

Dr. Fugh-Berman graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine and completed a family medicine internship in the Residency Program in Social Medicine at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx.

Adriane Fugh-Berman, MD is a Professor of Pharmacology and Physiology with a joint appointment in the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC). Dr. Fugh-Berman codirects the M.S. program in Health and the Public Interest and directs PharmedOut (GUMC), a research and education project that promotes rational prescribing, exposes the effect of pharmaceutical marketing on prescribing practices and has had a profound impact on prescribers’ perceptions of the adverse consequences of industry marketing.

Dr. Fugh-Berman has authored many key articles in peer-reviewed literature on the area of industry influence on medicine, including the first studies in the medical literature about how the pharmaceutical industry influences surgeons, pharmacists, basic scientists, and individual patients.

Other key articles include the first comprehensive article on marketing messages in continuing medical education, including studies of messaging in CME on short-acting opioids, fentanyl, binge-eating disorder, and hypoactive sexual desire disorder; a national survey of dentists attitudes about opioids, a study that shows that Medicare prescribers who accept industry gifts prescribe more medications (and more expensive medications), a review of how industry uses social psychology to manipulate physicians, an exposé of how ghostwritten articles in the medical literature were used to sell menopausal hormone therapy, an article about how “key opinion leaders” are used to market drugs off-label, an explanation of drug rep tactics, a national survey of industry interactions with family medicine residencies, and a study of the first educational activity that changed physicians’ perceptions about their own individual vulnerability to pharmaceutical marketing.

Ethics Advisor

Volnei Garrafa, Brasil

Volnei Garrafa is a Dentist, with a Doctor of Science degree. In 1973 he founded the Graduate Program in Bioethics and the International Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Brasilia, where he was a tenured professor until 2022. He is currently Professor Emeritus.

Volnei is involved in multiple activities: Coordinator of International Affairs of Redbioética Unesco;
Director and former president of the International Association for Ethics Education (IAEE), Pittsburgh, USA; member of the Scientific Council of the International Society of Bioethics (SIBI) Gijón, Spain; Director of the Unesco’s Bioethics journal; and Chief Editor of Bioethics, a Brazilian journal.

Over the years he has participated in various activities related to bioethics: President of the Brazilian Society of Bioethics (2001-2005); President of the Sixth World Congress of Bioethics of the International Association of Bioethics, Brasília, 2002; Member of the National Research Ethics Commission of Brazil, CONEP (1997-2003); Co-founder and first President of UNESC’s Latin American and Caribbean Bioethics Network (2003-2010), and Member of the International Bioethics Committee of Unesco (2010-2013; 2014-2017).

His extensive research appears in 315 scientific papers published in indexed journals, 21 books and 108 book chapters. The impact of his teaching and tutoring of 34 doctoral dissertations, 26 master’s theses and 48 final papers for obtaining a specialization in Bioethics is well recognized.

The city of Brasília has acknowledged his contribution to the capital of Brazil and in 2001 named him an Honorary Citizen of the City of Brasília.

Clinical Trial Advisor

Sergio Gonorazky, Argentina

Physician, graduated with honors from the School of Medicine of the National University of Buenos Aires. Residency in Neurology at the Mariano Castex Hospital (currently Eva Perón) of San Martín, Province of Buenos Aires. Consultant Specialist in Neurology. Former Chief of Neurology Service at Hospital Materno Infantil de Salta (Argentina). Former Chief of Neurology Service at the Private Community Hospital of Mar del Plata (HPC) (Argentina). Former Head of the Research Department of the HPC. Former Coordinator of the Institutional Research Studies Review Board of the HPC. Former member and current consultant of the HPC Hospital Ethics Committee. Former member of the Central Ethics Committee of the Province of Buenos Aires.

Clinical Trial Advisor

Tom Jefferson, Italia

Tom has 25 years’ experience in conducting and updating Cochrane reviews and in conducting systematic reviews on disparate topics, pharmacological (antivirals), biologic (vaccines), scholarly interventions (editorial peer review) and public health (hygiene interventions). Since the seminal Cochrane review on neuraminidase inhibitors Tom has become involved in campaigning for transparency and accessibility of regulatory data and its practical use as a novel source of evidence. Tom uses regulatory data for inclusion in his reviews and other work. Regulatory data are created for commercial purposes and fit the aims of industry. However, they are complete, exhaustive and not affected by publication bias. Clinical study reports and other regulatory data that form the contents of licensing applications exist to record the design, execution and results of a complete evidence development plan, with no space limitations. In addition, because of legal obligations, no parts of the CSR content are selected to showcase the drug or biologic’s highlights (as in the case of articles in biomedical journals).

Tom is also a founder of the RIAT initiative and a member of the RIAT support centre (https://restoringtrials.org/)

Regulatory Policy Advisor

Ricardo Martínez, Argentina

Dr. Martínez graduated in 1973 from the School of Medicine, National University of La Plata, Argentina, specialist in Cardiology and Health Care Administration. Dr. Martinez has been Chief of Cardiology at the Hospital San Martin, La Plata, and Director of the same hospital in 1987/1992 and 1994/1996. He was Deputy Secretary for Health Planning for the Province of Buenos Aires, General Coordinator for the hospitals of the Province, and Deputy Secretary of Health for the Province of Santa Cruz, Argentina. He has had executive positions in the Social Security Administration, and has been the Director (Interventor) of the National Administration of Medications, Food, and Medical Technology (ANMAT), Argentina. He is a Member of Editorial Board of the Journal Public Health; Founder of the Civil Association for Public Health; former Professor of Healthcare Organizations, National University of Lanus, Argentina, and a member of community-based organizations dedicated to promoting public of public health policies.

Intelectual Property Advisor

Peter Maybarduk, EE UU

Peter Maybarduk directs Public Citizen’s access to medicines group, which helps partners worldwide make medicine available and affordable for all. Maybarduk is an intellectual property expert. Since 2010 the access group’s work has helped shape major medicine pricing legislation and executive action in the United States and abroad, reduce the price of key medicines, conserve health budgets, change the course of international trade negotiations, facilitate technology licensing, empower public agencies, discipline prescription drug corporations, and support a more robust and equitable global response to Covid-19.

Maybarduk has provided technical and strategic assistance to government agencies and health organizations in dozens of countries. He facilitates U.S. and global civil society alliances on access to medicines. Maybarduk’s commentary frequently appears in papers of record, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. He sits on the governance board of the Medicines Patent Pool. Maybarduk studied technology law at the University of California at Berkeley and anthropology at The College of William and Mary in Virginia. He is an affiliate fellow with the Information Society Program at Yale Law School. Maybarduk founded International Professional Partnerships for Sierra Leone, a non-profit dedicated to supporting public sector development in one of the world’s least developed countries.

Pharmacy Advisor

Emilio Pol Yanguas, España

Upon graduation from the pharmacy school (1980) he specialized in hospital pharmacy (1984). In 1984 he earned the position of Chief of Pharmacy at the Psychiatric Hospital of Alicante (Spain), which currently is known as Dr. Esquerdo Center. He received his doctorate from the School of Medicine of the Miguel Hernandez University, and his dissertation topic was the determinants and frequency of the use of psychotropics by intellectually disabled persons in the Spanish province of Alicante. In 2002 he completed a Masters in Humanitarian Medicine (UHM) and his thesis was entitled “Pharmaceutical problems in developing countries). He has participated in training activities related to hospital pharmacy in several Latin American countries, in humanitarian aid during emergencies in the fourth world, and has worked with several non-governmental organizations such as the Association of Mental Health Patients and their Families and Physicians of the World – Valencian Community. His interest revolves around the efficacy and safety of medicines used in mental health patients and access to pharmaceuticals by individuals and groups of people who are marginalized and excluded. He is associate professor at the School of Pharmacy of UHM.

Pharmacology Advisor

Luis Carlos Saíz, España

Luis Carlos is a Pharmacist with specialization in hospital pharmacy and PhD in Health Sciences. His professional career began as a primary care pharmacist (Madrid, 1999-2012), continued as research coordinator in pharmacotherapy (Pamplona, 2012-2016) and he is currently a clinical researcher in the Innovation and Organization Unit of Health Services for Navarra. He has several years of experience in the critical appraisal of scientific literature, research methodology and evidence evaluation.

He has been editor of independent pharmaceutical publications for more than 20 years, and has been part of the executive committee of the International Society for Drug Bulletins (ISDB). Currently, he is editor of the Cochrane Collaborating Centre of Navarra, linked to the Cochrane Hypertension Group based in Vancouver (Canada). He has also received funding to carry out research projects in fields such as arterial hypertension, ADHD and childhood infections. He is the author of more than 40 scientific articles with national and international impact.

Economics Advisor

Federico Tobar, Panamá

Masters in Economics, specialized in Health, and Doctor in Political Sciences. International consultant in the formulation and management of health policy. Has worked in Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, USA, Ecuador and Argentina. Designed and implemented the Remediar Program in Argentina, the Basic Health Care Program in Paraguay, and the Basic Pharmaceutical Services program in Dominican Republic and for the Social Development Institute (INDES-BID) in Sao Paulo – Brazil. He is the author of fourteen books and eighty articles in specialized journals.

Access and Policy Advisor

Claudia Patricia Vaca Gonzales, Colombia

Pharmacoepidemiologist and M.Sc. in clinical and health effectiveness. Associate Professor of the Department of Pharmacy at the National University of Colombia with a broad trajectory in capacity building in pharmacoepidemiological research.

She is a member of several international expert groups dealing with public health and access to medicines, which promote the adoption of inclusive policies and technical regulations sensitive to access and rational use of chemically synthesized medicines, biologics and other medical technologies.

She was an advisor to the Colombian Ministry of Health under the leadership of Beatriz Londoño and Alejandro Gaviria, especially in the design and implementation of the national pharmaceutical policy. She is also founder and director of the Think Tank “Medicines, Information and Power” of the National University of Colombia.

Translators

Nazarena Galeano

I have a degree in English<>Spanish Technical Translation (Universidad Nacional de Lanús, Buenos Aires, Argentina). Currently, I am completing a Spanish Copy Editing and Proofreading Course (Corrector Internacional de Textos en Lengua Española, Fundación Litterae, Buenos Aires, Argentina [convenio Fundéu/RAE]).

I have collaborated in projects led by different international organizations, translating books, interviews and reports, and subtitling videos on topics related to humanitarian aid, children’s and women’s rights, and democratic education. I worked as an editorial assistant for an open access scientific journal that promotes critical thought in health, preparing articles to be published in its English version and translating contents for its web page.

Presently, I continue to focus on specializing in different translation fields.

Araceli Hurtado

Araceli Hurtado Álvarez graduated in Modern Languages and Interculturality from De La Salle Bajío University in Mexico. With four years of experience in translation, she has worked in three editions of the International Cello Festival in Leon (FIV León). As a volunteer, she has contributed to the translation of the book on democratic education by Derry Hannam, and translated the subtitles for many videos of channels such as ESA, The British Museum, Evolving Education, France Culture and Le Monde. She has always sought to be in continuous training in a self-taught way, which has led her to learn Japanese and get the DELF B1 (French) certificate.

Antonio Freitas Rocha de Menezes

Antonio, a London native, specializes in teaching Executive and Business English to professionals throughout Brazil. Three years of translation experience, including notable work on “Rediscover Catholicism” by Mathew Kelly. Currently an Administration student.