Meet the editors

Valderilio Feijó Azevedo is an Associate Professor of Rheumatology and the former head of the Rheumatology Unit, Hospital de Clínicas, Federal University of Paraná (FPR), Brazil. Since 2009, he has been the owner and principal investigator of EDUMED Health Research and Education and EDUMED Biotech. His major research interests include clinical trials, regulatory advances in biologics therapies, spondyloarthritis, new treatment strate-

gies for autoimmune diseases, biologics and biosimilars, and translational research in spondyloarthritis. Dr. Azevedo has authored several publications in the field. He is a member of the Brazilian Committee of Psoriatic Arthritis and coordinator of the Brazilian Committee of Biotechnology at the Brazilian Society of Rheumatology. He is also a member of the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA), European Scleroderma Trials and Research (EUSTAR), and a former member of the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS). Dr. Azevedo is an executive board member of Americas Health Foundation, Washington, DC. He has worked on projects on pharmacovigilance of biologics and biosimilars and spondyloarthritis and has been the coordinator of the Latin American Forum on Biosimilars (FLAB) since 2010. He is also an advisory board member of the Alliance for Safe Biologic Medicines, Washington, DC.

Robert Moots is a senior UK clinical academic rheumatologist. Qualifying in Medicine in London, he earned his Ph.D. in Immunology at the University of Oxford, UK, and worked at Harvard Medical School before returning to the United Kingdom to establish a new rheumatology group in Liverpool, where he was the first professor of rheumatology. His research focuses on inflammatory diseases, from bench to bedside, and he has

numerous publications in the field to his credit. His group is a designated European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) Centre of Excellence for rheumatology research. Dr. Moots advises NICE (and chaired the panel that devised quality standards for rheumatoid arthritis), is a past editor of Rheumatology, and lectures all around the world on his work. Clinical service is a crucial part of his role and he has extensive experience in managing hard-to-treat rheumatological diseases and in delivering therapy with both standard and high-cost drugs, with referrals from around the United Kingdom and internationally. Dr. Moots is Director of the National Centre of Excellence for Behçet's syndrome in Liverpool and has recently moved his academic affiliation to the newest medical school in the United Kingdom, Edge Hill University, Liverpool.
