PROF. APPENDINO AT THE HELM OF FITOTERAPIA JOURNAL

Indena's Director of Research and Development is the new Editor in Chief of the eminent journal for the study of medicinal plants 


Milan, December 3^rd, 2008 - Already member of the Advisory Board of some of the most important scientific publications dedicated to natural products, Professor Giovanni Appendino has now been appointed Editor in Chief of Fitoterapia, one of the longest-running journals for medicinal plants and still recognised as the world’s premier source of information in this field.

Founded in 1924 by Indena, Fitoterapia is today co-published by Indena and Elsevier. Giovanni Appendino has commented: "I am grateful to Indena and Elsevier for giving me the opportunity to contribute in spreading interest in natural products and their medicinal applications to the widest possible audience. There are clear molecular, evolutionary and structural bases for the relevance of natural products in drug discovery, and Fitoterapia will take upon the task to bring them to the attention of the biomedical community".

The international journal Fitoterapia publishes innovative research on the chemistry, pharmacology and use of medicinal plants and their derivatives. Over the past years, the Impact Factor has grown steadily, and Fitoterapia is now positioned within the top Journals of the area.
Supported by an internationally renowned Editorial Board, the journal has always attracted the most important contributions and has built up into a valuable work of reference for the scientific community all over the world: about 700 original scientific papers are received and screened for publication every year. To cut down the time from submission to reviewing and publishing an electronic submission system has also been implemented. Moreover, the reviewing process has been accelerated and is now within one month.

According to Giovanni Appendino: "continuing on the great job made by past Editor in Chief, Prof. Francesca Pelizzoni, and her Editors Dr. Bruno Gabetta and Dr. Salvatore Malandrino, I will do my best to steer Fitoterapia in the direction they have traced and to establish a deep interaction with readers and contributors. My goal is to place Fitoterapia in a central position between the investigation of crude extracts and the clinical development of compounds obtained from them."

Many papers in this journal are from researchers in emerging Countries. The journal Fitoterapia has provided the channel for bringing this knowledge to the attention of the entire international scientific community, while helping increase publication and funding of research in those countries.

ABOUT INDENA
Indena is the world's leading company dedicated to the identification, development and production of active principles derived from plants, for use in the pharmaceutical, health food and cosmetics industries. The key to Indena's success is its research, covering: the screening of medicinal plants for their pharmacological benefits, the identification of new active principles and the development of extraction and purification systems at the cutting-edge of industrial application. Backed up by over 80 years of botanical experience, the phyto-chemical research is carried out in Indena's own Settala Research Center, near Milan.
Indena also co-operates with the world's most prestigious universities and private research institutions in the biological assessment of safety and effectiveness up to clinical phase I. The company has more than 150 primary patents and has published around 700 scientific studies. Indena, with more than 700 employees, including 10% dedicated to full-time research, manages cultivation, manufacturing, and distribution operations in more than 40 countries. Headquartered in Milan, Indena has 5 production sites and 5 international branches throughout the world. The Company's experts communicate and interact constantly with the major international regulatory authorities such as WHO, EMEA, and ESCOP, and work with all the main pharmacopoeias.

ABOUT ELSEVIER
Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. Working in partnership with the global science and health communities, Elsevier’s 7,000 employees in over 70 offices worldwide publish more than 2,000 journals and 1,900 new books per year, in addition to offering a suite of innovative electronic products, such as ScienceDirect, MD Consult, Scopus, bibliographic databases, and online reference works. Elsevier is a global business headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and has offices worldwide. Elsevier is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc, a world-leading publisher and information provider. Operating in the science and medical, legal, education and business-to-business sectors, Reed Elsevier provides high-quality and flexible information solutions to users, with increasing emphasis on the Internet as a means of delivery. Reed Elsevier's ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).


Indena Press Contacts:
Cohn & Wolfe Milan
Laura Faravelli laura_faravelli@cohnwolfe.com
Lorenzo Petracco lorenzo_petracco@cohnwolfe.com
Tel.+39 02 202391