Speakers


Speakers

Katharine Boothe

Associate Professor, McMaster University

Katherine Boothe is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and a member of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis at McMaster University. She studies health and social policy in established welfare states, with a focus on pharmaceutical policies and public and patient engagement in health policy. Her book, Ideas and the Pace of Change, compares the development of public pharmaceutical insurance programs in Canada, Australia, and the UK to explain Canada’s lack of broad public pharmaceutical insurance. Her current research focuses on the role of patients and the public in health policy decision making, and the role of ideas about evidence and legitimacy in health policy decisions, especially during times of crisis.


Michelle Boudreau

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy, Health Canada

Michelle Boudreau is the Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, at Health Canada. Her responsibilities include pharmaceutical management and pharmacare policies, as well as policy integration on mental health and substance use. Before joining the federal government, Michelle worked as a pharmacist and as a lawyer, dabbling for a short time in intellectual property law. Over more than twenty years within government, Michelle has worked in many areas including regulatory, program design and operations, intellectual property policy, and pharmaceutical management systems policy. In her career at Health Canada, she has served as legal counsel in the Departmental Legal Services Unit and in senior executive roles.


Doug Clark

CEO, Pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance

Doug Clark was appointed chief executive officer of the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA) in September 2023. Prior to joining the pCPA, Doug served as a senior executive in the federal government, most recently as executive director of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board and before that, as assistant deputy commissioner with the Competition Bureau. Over the span of his 25-year career in the public service, Doug led a wide range of significant pharmaceutical policy and regulatory initiatives and acquired a deep and diverse understanding of the pharmaceutical landscape in Canada. Doug holds a BA and LLB and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1999.


Quinn Grundy

Assistant Professor, University of Toronto

Quinn Grundy is a registered nurse and an assistant professor with the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto. She serves as Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Governance, Accountability and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Sector based at the University of Toronto. Her research explores the interactions and intersections between medically-related industry and public health systems and the implications for healthcare delivery and health evidence. Dr Grundy is the author of Infiltrating Healthcare: How Marketing Works Underground to Influence Nurses, which details the first in-depth study of the ways that registered nurses interact with pharmaceutical and medical device company representatives.


Inma Hernandez

Professor, University of California, San Diego

Inmaculada (Inma) Hernandez is a professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Her research has focused on the study of medications for stroke prevention and the examination of drivers of drug prices. She currently serves as the National Academy of Medicine Fellow in Pharmacy. She received her PharmD from the University of Navarra in Spain; and her PhD in Health Services Research and Policy from the University of Pittsburgh. She was recognized on the Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2018 and in 2021 she became the first pharmacist to be recognized with the Academy Health Alice S. Hersh Emerging Leader Award.


Joanne Jung

Pharmacy and Clinical Practice Leader, Willis Towers Watson

Joanne Jung is Willis Towers Watson’s Canadian pharmacy and clinical practice leader. With several decades of pharmacy experience, she leads a national team of pharmacy experts who advise employers on managing pharmacy benefits for employees. As a practicing pharmacist and experienced health and benefits practitioner, Joanne brings a unique combination of expertise and hands-on experience. Joanne has partnered with a broad spectrum of employer, trustee and union groups to optimize drug plan utilization and mitigate costs. She has also advised a wide range of organizations in both the private and public sectors across Canada to design and implement health and benefit management strategies. Prior to joining Willis Towers Watson, Joanne worked at BC’s largest private insurer leading key innovations to their drug strategy. Also, as a clinical pharmacist she gained critical acclaim for her innovation in developing the clinical practice of hospital pharmacists.


Stephen Lucas

Deputy Minister, Health Canada

Stephen Lucas was appointed Deputy Minister of Health on September 3, 2019. He previously served as Deputy Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Senior Associate Deputy Minister (Climate Change) at ECCC, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet for Plans and Consultations and Intergovernmental Affairs at the Privy Council Office, and Assistant Secretary, Economic and Regional Development Policy, also at the Privy Council Office. He also served in roles at Natural Resources Canada and Health Canada (Director General in the Health Products and Food Branch). He started his career as a research scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada in 1988 and holds a PhD in structural geology and tectonics from Brown University.


Sallie Pearson

Professor, University of New South Wales, Sydney

Sallie Pearson is the Professor of Health Systems in the School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney and Director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Medicines Intelligence. She is a leading authority in the conduct of population-based research using routinely collected data and has led national and international studies generating real-world evidence on the use, benefits and safety of prescribed medicines. Sallie is a long-standing advocate for the safe and productive use of data to benefit the Australian community and has published widely on maximizing the value of data for decision-making in health.


Marcel Saulnier

Health Policy Consultant and Strategist, Santis Health

Marcel Saulnier is a health policy consultant and an Associate with Santis Health. He was previously Associate Assistant Deputy Minister of the Strategic Policy Branch at Health Canada. He has held other senior positions at Health Canada, including as Director General of Health Care Strategies and Director General of Policy Coordination and Planning. He played a key role in advising the government on health care policy, leading the development of bilateral agreements on mental health and home care, as well as laying the foundation for national universal pharmacare. He was Executive Director of the Secretariat for the Advisory Panel on the Implementation of National Pharmacare chaired by Dr Eric Hoskins (2018) and Executive Secretary of the secretariat for support of the the Advisory Panel on Healthcare Innovation (2015) chaired by Dr David Naylor. He has also held policy leadership positions at the Canadian Medical Association, the Prime Minister’s Office, Finance Canada, the National Forum on Health, and Health and Welfare Canada, and he is currently a member of the Institute Advisory Board of the CIHR Institute of Health Services and Policy Research.


Graham Statt

Chief Administrative Officer, District of Summerland

Graham Statt is the Chief Administrative Officer for the District of Summerland, BC, leading the delivery of public utilities, services, infrastructure, and responsible development. Before his time in local government, Graham spent nearly two decades in Alberta’s public service in five different Ministries, holding three different Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM) portfolios. From 2017 to 2020 Graham was the ADM of the Pharmaceutical and Supplementary Benefits Division in Alberta Health, where he was accountable for Alberta’s Drug Formulary and government-sponsored community and specialty drug programs, the Alberta Health Care Insurance Program, and the compensation of physicians throughout the province. He led the successful negotiation of a new Pharmacy Compensation Agreement for Alberta as well as the first Dental Fee Guide for Alberta in more than a decade. He also participated in key national initiatives including Canada’s Task Force for National Pharmacare and FPT health care insurance negotiations for program changes under the Canada Health Act. Graham also served as the Vice-Chair of the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA), Canada’s national coordinating body for conducting collective, expert-informed negotiations for drugs.