Market Access Summit - List of Speakers
Key Speakers:
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Helen Stevenson,President and CEO,Reformulary Group |
Michelle Boudreau,Executive Director,PMPRB |
David Stout,Director,Primary Care Trust Network (UK) |
Nick Bosanquet,Professor of Health Policy,Imperial College, London (UK) |
Anita Burrell,Associate VP, Distinct Project Unit, MS,Sanofi Aventis (US) |
Hear from these leaders
Alain Boisvert, VP for Market Access, Policy and Communications at Bristol-Myers Squibb
Andrew J. Leyva, Reimbursement Manager, Bayshore Specialty Rx, Patient Support Services
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Andrew studied at Dalhousie University and the University of Waterloo, where he studied for four years under the BA/BSW Social Development Studies program. He has several years of experience with Patient Support and Reimbursement Services and brings expertise in both co-pay and special access programs. Andrew is fluent in both Spanish and English, bringing added value and diversity to his role. At Bayshore, Andrew is responsible for managing Bayshore's reimbursement programs nationally. |
Anita Burrell, Associate VP, Distinct Project Unit, MS, Sanofi Aventis (US)
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Anita Burrell, M.A, M.B.A. is currently Associate Vice President, Distinct Project Unit – Multiple Sclerosis at sanofi-aventis, based in Bridgewater, USA, responsible for the global development of MS products including the novel oral medication teriflunomide. Anita previously spent 17 years working in health economics, reimbursement, pricing and market access in the pharmaceutical industry. She received a M.A. in Economics from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada and a Masters in Business Administration from the Kingston University, Surrey UK. Anita lectured economics and worked at Statistics Canada before joining the pharmaceutical industry in 1992. She worked for the Wellcome Foundation and Boehringer Ingelheim in increasing positions of responsibility in health economics before joining the one of sanofi-aventis' legacy companies in 1997. Anita has been responsible for health economics, reimbursement and pricing in numerous therapeutic areas including CNS, cardiovascular, oncology, anti-virals, respiratory and metabolism. She has worked alongside pivotal phase III trials to integrate outcomes research and economic endpoints including the development of new Quality of Life instruments in migraine and herpes. As a founder member of iHEA and active member of ISTAHC, DIA, ISOQOL and ISPOR, Anita has developed and delivered several presentations and workshops in health economics and related fields including being responsible for the initiation of a briefing series on these topics which is endorsed by Bandolier and included in the Electronic Library for Health. In her role at sanofi-aventis, she spent three years as the Head of the UK Health Economics section which has had an active involvement with the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) including acting as an advisor to the update of the Guidance to Manufacturers and Sponsors. She has given input to IFPHMA and the ABPI subteams for Health Economics and was recently co-leader of the Definitions section of the Special Interest Group on Compliance at ISPOR. Given the increasing need for products to demonstrate added value as a prerequisite for market uptake, her role has been created to focus investment and input on customer driven needs in the development process to optimize the future potential of MS therapies offered by sanofi aventis. |
Celine Chiovitti, Director, Pension, Payroll and Employee Benefits, City of Toronto
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Celine is a Certified Employee Benefits Specialist with over 12 years of senior management experience with the City of Toronto specializing in benefits, pension and payroll. Her major accomplishments have included harmonizing the administration of benefit plans from over 10 different carriers, implementation of strategies to strengthen the governance, internal controls and oversight within the benefit plan designs and implementation of a benefits strategy with a focus on harmonization, reduction of liabilities and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the plans. |
Clarissa Desjardins, Chief Executive Officer, CEPMED
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Clarissa Desjardins, Ph.D. is the CEO of the CEPMED, the Centre of Excellence in Personalized Medicine, a CECR, funded by the federal government and private companies, to promote personalized medicine through education, policy and public-private research partnerships. Prior to this, Dr. Desjardins had been a serial entrepreneur, taking part in all aspects of company creation, from creation, to financing, to the marketplace. She was the founder of Advanced Bioconcept, a research reagent and diagnostics company which was sold to NEN Life Sciences (Perkin Elmer) in 1998. She also co-founded Caprion Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biotechnology company focused on proteomic biomarker discovery and drug development where she was Executive Vice-President of Corporate Development (now Thallion, a TSX-listed company). Dr. Desjardins received the BRIO award for outstanding contributions to the biotechnology industry from the Quebec Biotechnology Association, was nominated to Ernst &Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award and was one of Canada's top young Canadians likely to influence the future by the Globe and Mail. She has been a Board Member on numerous private and public companies including most recently the Populomix Cancer Research Institute. She earned a Ph.D. in Neurology and Neurosurgery from McGill's Faculty of Medicine, and was a Medical Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre. |
David Stout, Director, Primary Care Trust Network
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David took up post as the first Primary Care Trust Network Director at the NHS Confederation in February 2007 and was appointed Deputy Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation in 2011. The NHS Confederation is an independent organisation which represents over 95% of the NHS in England and most of the UK. The PCT Network provides an independent voice for PCTs across the England. David works to influence politicians and policy makers and speaks regularly in the media and at conferences. Previously David had been Chief Executive of Newham Primary Care Trust from 2001 to 2007. Newham is a deprived borough in east London. The PCT won a number of national awards for service innovation and reducing health inequalities. David joined the NHS as a management trainee in 1984. Prior to joining Newham PCT he was the Director of Mental Health & Learning Disabilities Services and Deputy Chief Executive at Camden & Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust. |
Dimitris Polygenis, VP Speciality, McKesson Canada
Doug Worndl, Partner, Siskinds
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Doug Worndl is a litigation partner in the Toronto office of Siskinds LLP. His practice focuses on class actions as well as conventional commercial, product liability and aviation related litigation. Doug is a graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Arts & Sciences (BA specializing in economics and history, with distinction, 1984); the University of Toronto Faculty of Law (LL.B., 1987), and Osgoode Hall Law School (LL.M., Securities Law, 2008) and was called to the Bar in Ontario in 1989. Before joining Siskinds in 2011, Doug practiced for more than 19 years (+15 years as a partner) at Canada's largest law firm, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, and its predecessor Borden & Elliot. Before joining Borden & Elliot, Doug was Counsel and Director of Research to the Federal Commission of Inquiry into the Air Ontario Crash at Dryden, Ontario (1989-1991). Doug's practice has included matters as varied as: counsel to major Federal Commission of Inquiry into the crash of a commercial jet airliner; successful co-counsel on leading Supreme Court of Canada case on Anton Piller relief and solicitor-client privilege; ongoing prosecution and defence of the most hotly contested "existential" business disputes; defence of insured claims against airlines, airports, and aircraft manufacturers; defence of complex multi-party product liability cases; prosecution and defence of shareholder disputes. Doug has written and spoken on current issues in securities law (investor rights and remedies); administrative law (the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board); and air law (the Warsaw/Hague/Montreal liability regimes). Doug has appeared before all levels of court in Ontario and in the Supreme Court of Canada and on a number of private commercial arbitrations. While retained by a wide variety of local, national, and multi-national clients, Doug's practice has focused on the financial services, manufacturing, biotech/pharma and aviation sectors. This is the third time Doug has addressed the Market Access Summit on the PMPRB and related issues. |
George Wyatt, Managing Director, Wyatt Health Management
Helen Stevenson, President and CEO, Reformulary Group
Ian Hilley, VP, Government Affairs and Market Access, Mylan Pharmaceuticals
Jeff Graham, Partner, Borden Ladner Gervais
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Jeffrey Graham is one of Canada's leading biotech and pharmaceutical regulatory counsel. He is a partner in the Toronto office of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP and the leader of the firm's national biotech and pharmaceutical group. Jeff's clients include domestic and international consumer products, biotech and biopharmaceutical companies for whom he provides corporate and regulatory advice with respect to compliance with federal and provincial laws and regulations including the federal Food and Drugs Act, and provincial laws relating to formularies, and various regulatory agencies including Health Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Canadian Pest Management Agency and the PMPRB. Jeff is the senior editor of the LexisNexis compilation of Federal Food and Drug Legislation and Commentary, and the lead editor of the Canadian Health Law Practice Manual, Chapter on Pharmaceuticals. He was the founding President of Life Sciences Ontario (formerly The Biotechnology Initiative). He is Chair and President of Bioscience Education Canada and a director of BioFinance Canada. Recently he acted as special counsel for BiotecCanada in the development of Commercial Practice Standards for the biopharmaceutical sector. Mr. Graham received B.Comm. and B.L.C./L.L.B. degrees from McGill University and graduate degrees in international law from Cambridge University and Columbia University. He is a member of the Bars of the District of Columbia and Ontario. |
Joanne Jung, Manager, Pharmacy Services, Pacific Blue Cross
Karen Netherton, VP Policy and Reimbursement, Novartis
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As Vice-President, Policy & Reimbursement, of Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. Karen Netherton manages a team at head office and across Canada who are responsible for ensuring that Novartis and its innovative medicines are known and understood by key stakeholders and that the medicines are readily available to Canadian patients through private and public drug plans. The team is responsible for health economics studies and analyses, reimbursement strategies, government relations and communications. Karen joined Novartis in October 2010 after nine years with Janssen Ortho, the pharmaceuticals division of Johnson & Johnson. Over that period, she took on positions of increasing responsibilities related to market access, government relations and health economics. For her last three years there, she was responsible for the development of reimbursement and medical affairs strategies and ensuring that data generation met the company's reimbursement and commercial needs. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, she was Director of Public Affairs and Communications for the Western Brewers Association and also worked several years as an independent marketing and communications consultant based in Vancouver. The first part of her career was dedicated to government and political work, including several years in Ottawa as an assistant and advisor to two federal cabinet ministers. In 1997, she was senior coordinator, Federal/Provincial/Municipal Liaison, for that year's summit meeting in Vancouver of the Asia Pacific Economic Council (APEC). Karen was also active in grassroots political efforts and community activities, working on numerous campaigns in BC for various candidates. Karen has a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of British Columbia and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Athabasca in Alberta. She is bilingual and has a passion for a variety of outdoor activities. |
Kevin West, VP Strategic Partnerships and Government Relations, Innomar Strategies
Lesley Rapaport, President, LRR Patent Law
Louise Boisjoly, Director, Health Policy, Actelion Pharmaceuticals Canada
Michelle Boudreau, Executive Director, PMPRB
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Michelle Boudreau joined the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) as Executive Director in August 2010. The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) is Canada's agency responsible for prices of patented medicines and analysis in Canada. Created in 1987 as an independent quasi-judicial tribunal, the PMPRB has a dual mandate – to ensure that the prices charged by patentees for patented medicines sold in Canada are not excessive; and to analyse and report on pharmaceutical trends and on the patentees' spending in research and development. The PMPRB also works in partnership with the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) to implement the National Prescription Drug Utilization Information System (NPDUIS). NPDUIS provides critical analyses of price, utilization and cost trends so that health system decision-makers have comprehensive and accurate information on the utilization of prescription drugs and the sources of cost changes. As the senior full-time officer of the PMPRB, Ms. Boudreau is responsible for the corporate leadership of the agency, including its strategic direction, voluntary compliance and pricing guidelines, and the management of human and financial resources. Ms. Boudreau has extensive experience in the development of government policy. She worked on legislative and regulatory changes in the area of copyright policy at the Department of Canadian Heritage and in the development of patent and biotechnology policy at Industry Canada. Ms. Boudreau was legal counsel with the Health Canada Legal Services Unit for six years. She has been the Director of the Compliance and Enforcement Division within the Health Products and Food Branch Inspectorate and served as Executive Advisor to the Deputy Minister of Health prior to being appointed Director General of the Natural Health Products Directorate in September 2008, a position she held until August 2010. Ms. Boudreau holds a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from Dalhousie University and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Ottawa. |
Natalie Yeadon, Partner, Business and Social Media Strategist, Impetus Healthcare Inc
Neil Palmer, President and Principal Consultant, PDCI
Nick Bosanquet, Professor of Health Policy, Imperial College, London (UK)
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Professor Nick Bosanquet. Professor of Health Policy Imperial College. Chairman Volterra Health Founder member of the Centre for Health Economics University of York. Special Advisor on public expenditure to the House of Commons Health Committee 2001-10. Non-executive Director Richmond and Twickenham PCT 2001-7 Member of UK Government Advisory Committee on a Reform Cancer Strategy and Chairman of its costs and benefits sub-committee . Publications include "Family Doctors and Economic Incentives "and "The Economics of Cancer Care." ( paperback--Cambridge University Press 2011). Early advocate of doing more with less to improve health outcomes. |
Paulette Eddy, Executive Director, Best Medicines Coalition
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Paulette Eddy has been involved in various public affairs and communications capacities throughout her career, specializing in the pharmaceutical and not-for-profit health sectors. Following a period in journalism, early in her career Paulette worked as part of a team of Toronto-based government relations consultants early and later joined a multinational pharmaceutical company, establishing and leading its corporate public affairs department. She was also the Canadian healthcare practice leader for a global public relations agency, advising pharmaceutical and other clients on strategic communications programs. More recently, Paulette established an independent consulting practice, within which she serves as Executive Director of the Best Medicines Coalition, facilitating the involvement of patient advocates in the national health policy process, while providing strategic and administrative direction. The Best Medicines Coalition is a national alliance of patient organizations and individuals who share a commitment to safe and timely access to evidence-based medicines for all Canadians. The organization is engaged in a range of related policy discussions, including pharmaceutical review, reimbursement, treatment and safety issues. Paulette lives in Toronto where she has been active with various charitable organizations and has been an instructor in the School of Media Studies at Humber College. She is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario, where she studied political science. |
Satinder Chera, VP Provincial Affairs for Ontario, Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses
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Satinder Chera is the Vice-President for Ontario with the CFIB. In this capacity he represents the Federation's 42,000 small and medium-sized business members at all levels of government. He joined the CFIB as Director of Provincial Affairs in 2003. Prior to joining the Federation, Satinder was the Director of Research for the Government Caucus of British Columbia. He also served as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Ontario Government and at the Fraser Institute in Vancouver. Satinder is currently a member of the Small Business Agency of Ontario and the Canadian LabourWatch Association. He received his Bachelor of Arts (Hon.) from the University of Toronto in 1999. |
Scott Gavura , Director, Provincial Drug Reimbursement Programs, Cancer Care Ontario
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Scott Gavura is passionate about improving the way we use medications. As Director, Provincial Drug Reimbursement Programs, at Cancer Care Ontario (CCO), Scott is responsible for coordinating advice to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) on cancer drugs, and for the strategic direction and oversight of the New Drug Funding Program, which reimburses hospitals for the costs of new and expensive cancer treatments. Scott's background includes multiple roles in government, drug information, as well as hospital and community pharmacy practice. Scott holds both Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy and Master of Business Administration degrees from the University of Toronto. He is a registered pharmacist in Ontario. |
Shelley Kee, VP, Group Business (Atlantic Canada), Medavie Blue Cross
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During her 20-year career with Medavie Blue Cross, Shelley has been very successful in growing group business in Atlantic Canada by executing effective client retention and acquisition strategies. In her current role, Shelley is responsible for diverse operations, including sales, product development and group underwriting, as well as fostering effective relationships with health care providers in Ontario, Québec and Atlantic Canada. Shelley was the first Atlantic Canadian to receive a Who's Who in Healthcare Award – Group Benefits from Rogers Media. She is the Past Chair of the Canadian Council on Integrated Healthcare, a national think-tank dedicated to helping Canadians understand emerging health care issues. Under Shelley's leadership, Medavie Blue Cross continues to develop and implement innovative products and services in response to our clients' needs. |
Suzanne Lepage, Private Health Plan Strategist, President, Suzanne Lepage Consulting
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Suzanne is a private health plan strategist with strong pharmaceutical industry, group insurance and employer relationships. Suzanne's professional experience includes several years as the National Manager Private Healthcare with Roche Canada, one of the world's leading specialty pharmaceutical manufacturer. During that time she developed and executed private healthcare strategies for leading biologic drugs, developed and maintained strategic partnerships in the private market and recommended and implemented innovative solutions to meet shifting market needs. In addition she managed a patient assistance program for biologic medications. She has also helped stakeholders, such as government agencies, medical professionals and patient groups better understand the private health plan market in Canada. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry Suzanne worked in group benefits in a wide variety of roles for almost 20 years. Most recently she was the Product Manager for the drug programs for Manulife Financial, one of Canada's largest insurance companies, where she developed extensive knowledge and a broad, real-world perspective on pharmacy benefit management. Suzanne is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University with a degree in Communication Studies and a certificate in Marketing. Suzanne is Co-Chair of GIPC (Group Insurance Pharmaceutical Committee) and has been an active member of two key industry associations: CLHIA (Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association) and RX&D (Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies). She is also a frequent contributor to industry publications and conferences. |
Wayne Millar, AVP, Group Product Development, Sun Life
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Wayne Millar is Assistant Vice-President, Group Benefits Product Development at Sun Life Financial. Wayne is responsible for the management of Sun Life's existing product portfolio, as well as the innovation and development of new nitiatives. Wayne's accountability includes Pharmaceutical, Absence & Disability, Product Technology, and Health / Dental. Prior to this role, Wayne led numerous global IT international initiatives with the focus on acquisitions/divestitures. |
Testimonial
"A good crash course on the market access landscape. It had the impact of providing good networking connections but also a broad survey of the regulatory landscape."
Aaron Levo
Canadian Cancer Society








































