Expert Advisory Group on Marketing of Opioids – Member Biographies

Biographies of Members

Irfan Dhalla

Irfan Dhalla is a general internist and the Vice-President, Evidence Development and Standards at Health Quality Ontario. He continues to practice general internal medicine at St. Michael’s Hospital, as well as teach to medical students and residents. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, with a cross-appointment to the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. He also holds appointments at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

Andreas Laupacis

Andreas Laupacis is a palliative care physician and health services researcher at St. Michael’s Hospital. He is a professor in the Faculty of Medicine and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. He was previously President and CEO of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and is currently board chair of Health Quality Ontario. He has published extensively in the area of evidence based medicine, the appropriate use of pharmaceuticals, and health policy. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the 2018 recipient of the Frederic Newton Gisborne Starr Award from the Canadian Medical Association.

Trudo Lemmens

Trudo Lemmens is professor and Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy at the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto, with cross appointments in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Joint Centre for Bioethics. His research focuses on the interaction between law, governance mechanisms, and ethical norms and values in the context of health care, biomedical research, health product development, and-more generally-knowledge production. He teaches courses on health law and bioethics, mental health and the law, pharmaceutical governance, and research ethics. He has testified before Parliamentary Committees on pharmaceutical policy, has been consulted by national and international organizations (including the World Health Organization) and is currently a member of the Advisory Committee on Health Research of the Pan American Health Organization.

Barbara Mintzes

Barbara Mintzes is a senior lecturer at the School of Pharmacy and Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney. Her research is on pharmaceutical policy, including systematic reviews, observational research on regulatory policies, and drug utilization or pharmacoepidemiology. At the University of British Columbia, she worked with the Therapeutics Initiative on systematic reviews of new drug treatments and an information bulletin for clinicians. She has studied the effects of direct-to-consumer advertising of medicines, and carried out a study of the quality of information provided by sales representatives to family doctors in Canada, the United States and France. She is the principal investigator on a current project that compares regulatory safety advisories on medicines in Australia, Canada, the United States and Europe.

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