Mithra Pharmaceuticals S.A.

Board/Management Information • Apr 25, 2023

Curriculum Vitae Professor J.M. Foidart

J.M. Foidart is an MD, PhD trained in Obstetrics and Gynecology (Ob-Gyn), in part in the United States (1976-1979) at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Baltimore, and in Belgium, Finland and France. He spent 3 years as a biochemist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. He became in 1988, professor and chairman of the Dept of Cell Biology at the University of Liege (ULg), Belgium. He then established a large and well renowned laboratory that owns many patents. He contributed from 1989 until 1996 to the clinical development of the first oral contraceptive containing Drospirenone. In 1996, he became chairman of the Dept of Ob-Gyn ULg, until 2012. From 2012 until 2015 he was extraordinary Professor at University of Liège, Belgium and chairman of the Interdisciplinary Group of Genomics and Proteomics (600 researchers). He is presently Board member and the chairman of the Scientific Board at MITHRA, a Belgian company that he created in 1999 with François Fornieri. His main research interest is in experimental reproductive endocrinology and oncology. He played a pivotal role in the development of Levosert, an intra-uterine system releasing small amounts of levonorgestrel.

Professor Foidart is a member of many national and international scientific committees. He is a past president of the Belgian Society of Biology and of the Belgian Society of Gynecology. He is past General Secretary of the European Society of Gynecology and a former Board member at FIGO and presently a member of the Board of the International Society of Gynecological Endocrinology. He has been an invited lecturer at the Universities of Paris VII and Paris XI and is the recipient of several international awards from Belgian (Chaires Francqui 1995 and 1996), and French Universities. He has received many honorary and scientific distinctions. He is Dr. Honoris Causae at the University la Sorbonne-Pierre et Marie Curie, (Paris 2010) and Paul Sabatier Toulouse (2012).

Professor Foidart was awarded in 2006, to the "Prix Maisin", highest distinction for medical achievement of the National Research Foundation in Belgium and is Officier de l'Ordre de Léopold II and Commandeur de l'Ordre de la Couronne. He organized more than 30 International Congresses in the fields of Contraception, Reproductive Endocrinology and Menopause. He has published over 800 manuscripts, 26 chapters in books, and more than 40 invited reviews, in outstanding journals with a mean H index of 115, that were cited more than 49.000 times.

Professor Foidart is a member of the French and Belgian Academies of Medicine of which he has been the Perpetual Secretary until January 2022. He has been appointed in 2018, Treasurer of the European Federation of the Academies of Medicine. He was nominated Baron in 2017, by King Philippe of Belgium for his major achievements in science and medicine.