PharmacoEpidemiology

Colin Dormuth has extensive experience using administrative health care databases to evaluate pharmaceutical policy changes and physician prescribing behaviour. He has been a member of the Therapeutics Initiative since 1995. His research focuses on drug safety and effectiveness, as well as the design and evaluation of reimbursement policies for prescription drugs. He has training in economic theory, applied econometrics, epidemiology, health services outcome research and biostatistics. Dr. Dormuth holds a Sc.D. and S.M. in epidemiology from Harvard University, an M.A. in economics from the University of Victoria, and a B.A. in economics from the University of Manitoba.

Ken Bassett conducts systematic reviews of the efficacy and safety of new and established drugs, as well as pharmaco-epidemiologic studies of serious adverse events associated with prescription drug therapy in British Columbia. His ongoing research interests are in the systematic review of drug therapy and drug funding policy.

James (Jim) Wright obtained his MD from the University of Alberta in 1968, his FRCP(C) in Internal Medicine in 1975 and his PhD in Pharmacology from McGill University in 1976. He is a practicing specialist in Internal Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Therapeutics Letter. He sits on the Editorial Boards of PLoS One and the Cochrane Library.
Dr. Wright’s research focuses on issues related to appropriate use of prescription drugs (particularly antihypertensive and lipid lowering drugs), Clinical Pharmacology, clinical trials, systematic review, meta-analysis and knowledge translation.

Greg Carney holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Victoria in applied economics. He has a unique skill set which combines business analysis, economics, statistical programming, and epidemiology. Since 1999 he has worked as an economist, business analyst, health researcher, statistician, and epidemiologist. His research focuses on post market pharmaceutical surveillance and pharmaceutical outcomes using large health care utilization databases.

Dr. Lorri Puil obtained her MD from the University of Toronto and has postgraduate training in internal medicine, hematology and clinical pharmacology. She holds a PhD from the University of Toronto in molecular biology (signal transduction), a field directly applicable to the development and assessment of novel therapeutics such as targeted molecules and biologics.

Dr. Puil has 15 years of experience in conducting systematic reviews and directing multidisciplinary knowledge synthesis teams in the evaluation of health care interventions. She is actively involved in teaching research synthesis methods, the critical appraisal of clinical trials and non-randomized studies, and evidence-based drug therapy to health professionals and students. Dr. Puil’s ongoing research interests are the benefits and harms of prescription drugs, including their molecular effects, and methods to improve the quality of evidence syntheses to support policy and clinical decision making.

Dr. Puil is a senior member of the Drug Assessment Working Group, a contributor to Therapeutic Letters, an Editor of the Cochrane Hypertension Group, and a member of the Cochrane & Campbell Equity Methods Group, which aims to improve the applicability of evidence to diverse populations.

Barbara Mintzes is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Sydney, Australia, and an Affiliate Associate Professor with the School of Population and Public Health at UBC. She has worked with the Therapeutics Initiative’s Drug Assessment Working Group to carry out systematic reviews of the effectiveness and safety of new drugs since 1999, and was in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics and School of Population and Public Health at UBC until March 2015.

Dr Mintzes researches the effects of drug promotion, including direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines, on prescribing, medicine use and thresholds for disease diagnosis.  She co-authored the book, “Sex, Lies and Pharmaceuticals” with Ray Moynihan in 2010.

At the University of Sydney, she works with the Charles Perkins Centre, a multi-disciplinary research centre focusing on obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. She co-leads the Charles Perkins Centre’s Evidence Synthesis Node, and is a member of the Bias and Research Integrity Node. Dr Mintzes holds a doctorate in epidemiology from the University of British Columbia. She has also worked for many years with consumer and women’s health organizations, in Canada and internationally.

In 2014-2016, Barbara Mintzes was a paid expert witness on behalf of plaintiffs in two Canadian class action suits, on cardiovascular risks of testosterone treatment, and on hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer. She has no other conflicts to declare.

Anat Fisher obtained her M.D. degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. She also has a Master of Health Administration from the Tel Aviv University in Israel. She worked as a family practitioner for many years and managed a Hospital Department in a Managed Health Organization. She is an experienced researcher and an expert in data analysis and trend analysis. She has conducted several systematic reviews on safety and efficacy of new drug therapies and is an author of Cochrane systematic reviews.

Richard Morrow holds an MA in Economics from the University of Victoria and a BA in English Literature from McGill University. His expertise includes policy analysis, communications, health economics, statistical methods and programming. Since 2004, he has worked as a research analyst in the areas of pharmaceutical policy and post-market drug safety and effectiveness.

Paramdeep has joined the APT Department as Statistician for the Surgery Quality Outcome Reports (SQOR) project in 2017. She has experience in using administrative data bases and is currently providing statistical support to TI’s Quality Prescribing Working Group (QPWG). She is currently doing her Professional Specialization Certificate in Population Health Data Analysis (PHDA) from the University of Victoria.

Paramdeep obtained a Master in Statistics (with distinction) and a PhD in Statistics from the Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India. She worked as Lecturer in Statistics at the Khalsa College Amritsar, India from 2008 to 2010. She worked as Assistant Professor in the Community Medicine Department at Christian Medical College & Hospital (CMC), Ludhiana, India for 4 years and during this period she also provided Statistician support to the CMC Stroke Research Team. She was the lead statistician for India’s first population based stroke registry that was sponsored by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Government of India, performed analysis of randomized controlled trials (https://n.neurology.org/content/83/11/1012.short, https://n.neurology.org/content/80/6/528.long) and is co-author for more than 25 research publications, including a completed systematic review and meta-analysis. Before immigrating to Canada, Paramdeep worked for 2 years as Medical Statistician at the University of Oxford, UK.

Ellen is a Research Project Manager at the Therapeutics Initiative. Originally from the East Coast, she has a BA in French Literature from Dalhousie University and a Diploma in Professional Writing and Editing from UVic. She received her Master’s in Public Administration from the University of Victoria in 2015. The focus of her master’s research was physicians’ experiences and attitudes toward interactions with pharmaceutical sales representatives. She began working as a research coordinator at UBC in 2008, and previously worked extensively with women’s health organizations, including the Canadian Women’s Health Network and DES (diethylstilbestrol) Action Canada. She is currently the Project Manager for a grant looking at the impact of international safety advisories on prescribing, and also works on various TI and CNODES projects.

Jason is a Research Analyst at the Therapeutics Initiative, specializing in epidemiological methods, data analysis, and statistical programming. He graduated with a Bachelor of Health Sciences from McMaster University and a Master of Public Health from the University of British Columbia, which was supported by a CIHR Canada Graduate Scholarship. He has particular interests in causal inference methods for observational studies, modern approaches to data visualization, as well as developing reproducible statistical programs for collaborative research. Jason is especially passionate about analyzing large data to evaluate health care systems and policy. At the Therapeutics Initiative, he works with linkable administrative health databases to answer questions about pharmaceutical outcomes, policy, and prescription drug utilization as a member of the Pharmaco-Epidemiology Group.

Nicole has a background in statistics and an interest in healthcare research. She studied at the University of Victoria (UVic) where she earned a Combined Honours BSc in Mathematics and Statistics and MSc in Statistics. Formerly she worked as the Statistics Research Consultant for UVic’s Statistical Consulting Centre, providing guidance and analysis support to clients conducting healthcare and academic research. More recently, Nicole contributed to the surgical quality outcomes report (SQOR) project at UBC and the TI’s Quality Prescribing Working Group (QPWG) in a contractor Statistician role.
Her interests include all things data, with a particular passion for automation, reproducible research, machine learning, and data visualizations. Outside of the office, Nicole enjoys spending her time camping, hiking, and exploring Vancouver Island.

Scott Garrison has degrees in engineering physics and medicine, as well as a PhD in experimental medicine from the University of British Columbia. He has worked in Richmond, BC as a full-time office and hospital-based family physician since 1992 and has been a member of GPAC working groups producing the current BC provincial guidelines for the management of hypertension, stroke and cardiovascular risk reduction. He sat on the Primary Care Advisory Council for the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and was the President of the Medical Staff for Richmond Hospital. He is also a clinical assistant professor with the UBC Dept of Family Practice and the principle investigator of a clinical trial exploring the role of magnesium in muscle cramping.