The pCODR Expert Review Committee (pERC)

The pan-Canadian Oncology Drug Review Expert Review Committee (pERC) is an appointed, pan-Canadian advisory body to CADTH composed of individuals with expertise in cancer drug therapy, drug evaluation and drug utilization, and patient members (for a lay perspective).

As part of the CADTH reimbursement review process, pERC makes reimbursement recommendations for oncology pharmaceuticals to the participating federal, provincial, and territorial publicly funded drug programs. It also makes recommendations related to the identification, evaluation, and promotion of optimal drug prescribing and use in Canada.

pERC's approach is evidence based, and the advice reflects medical and scientific knowledge, current clinical practice, economics, ethical considerations, and patient and public impact.

pERC is appointed by, and reports to, CADTH's President and CEO. Members must abide by the Conflict of Interest Guidelines for CADTH Expert Committee and Panel Members and the CADTH Code of Conduct. An honorarium is paid to pERC members for their preparation and meeting time.

• pERC Terms of Reference
• Expert Committee Meeting Schedule
• CADTH Conflict of Interest Guidelines
• CADTH Code of Conduct

pERC's Deliberative Framework

To ensure the consistency and transparency of its cancer drug review process, pERC follows a well-defined deliberative framework. This framework describes all the elements that should be considered by pERC during its review.

Each element is important to the review, and it is the sum consideration of all elements that pERC uses to formulate a funding recommendation.

• Deliberative Framework Last updated: March 2011

Membership

All pERC members have experience with and a good understanding of issues related to cancer diagnosis, treatment, and care. Each member must also comply with CADTH's conflict of interest, confidentiality requirements, and code of conduct. Professional members of pERC are drawn from the fields of medicine, pharmacy, pharmacology, or health economics. Patient members are selected because of their personal knowledge of, experience with, and understanding of issues related to cancer and its management, among other qualifications. pERC has up to 17 voting members including the three patient members.

Chair

Dr. Maureen Trudeau, Oncologist

Dr. Maureen Trudeau is Chair of the pan Canadian Oncology Drug Review Expert Review Committee. She is a medical oncologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, an Affiliate Scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute and Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Trudeau has been involved in practice guideline development for Cancer Care Ontario –Ontario Health and the American Society of Clinical Oncology for many years. She was a former provincial head of the Systemic Treatment Program for CCO and head of the Division of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Sunnybrook for 15 years. Her research interests include targeted neoadjuvant therapies and health services research in breast cancer, as well as the use of new drugs.

In 2019 she was awarded membership in the Academy of Master Clinicians in the University of Toronto Department of Medicine and more recently has taken on the role of a Clinical Faculty Advocate for the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Members

Dr. Catherine Moltzan, Oncologist

Dr. Moltzan is on the medical staff of CancerCare Manitoba and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority as a Clinical Hematologist since 2000. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Manitoba. She has held a number of administrative positions through her career, and currently she is a Medical Advisor for Quality, Patient Safety, and Risk at CancerCare Manitoba. Her academic interests include transfusion medicine, medical education, and patient safety.

Dr. Moltzan obtained her Medical Degree in 1992 at the University of Alberta. She completed a rotating internship at the University of Alberta and then completed residency programs in Internal Medicine and Hematology at the University of Manitoba, 1993 -1998. She also completed a residency program in Hematological Pathology at the University of Ottawa, 1998- 2000. In 2006, she completed a Certificate in Medical Education, University of Dundee, UK, and she is currently completing a master’s degree in Patient Safety Leadership from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure 

Dr. Matthew Cheung, Oncologist

Dr. Matthew Cheung obtained his Medical Degree in 1999 at the University of Toronto. He completed residency programs in internal medicine and hematology from 1999 to 2004 at the University of Toronto. Thereafter, he completed a clinical and Research Fellowship in Lymphoma, and a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) HIV/AIDS postdoctoral research fellowship. In 2006, he obtained a master’s degree in clinical epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. He currently holds peer-reviewed grant support from CIHR, the National Cancer Institute of Canada, and the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR)

Dr. Cheung joined the medical staff at the Odette Cancer Centre/Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre as a clinician investigator and clinical hematologist in 2007. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He serves on the Hematology Disease Site Executive Committee for the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group and is a member of the Hematology Cancer Disease Site Group of the Cancer Care Ontario Program in Evidence-based Care. His research interests include AIDS-related malignancies, clinical trial development in lymphoma, and pharmacoeconomic evaluation in the hematologic malignancies.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Marianne Taylor, Oncologist

Dr. Taylor did her medical training in Ontario. She completed her MBA at UBC in 2013 and a master’s in healthcare quality in 2017.

Dr. Taylor has been a practicing medical oncologist for 28 years. She held leadership positions at BCCA from 2004 to 2016. From 2012-2016 she was the VP of Systemic Therapy at the BCCA. At the BCCA one of her primary responsibilities was managing the provincial Cancer Drug budget. Dr. Taylor was chair of pCODR - PAG previously and now sits on pERC. She is the staff medical oncologist for the Drug Funding Sustainability project at CAPCA.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Leela John, Pharmacist

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Cameron Lane, Patient

Cam Lane received a Master of Science degree from the University of Alberta in 1997 and has worked for the Government of Alberta for 22 years in the area of environmental and natural resource management.

Cam was diagnosed in 2006 with stage 2c melanoma. After repeated surgeries and scans over the next six years Cam was diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma in December 2013. Placed on an immunotherapy trial in December 2013 – 2017 Cam had a complete response to therapy and currently enjoys 5 years cancer free. Cam has spoken at several Cancer information events over the past several years regarding his cancer journey in support for awareness of patient experiences, values and enhanced outcomes for patients and families. Cam has three active children and lives a very active life in Edmonton.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Dr. Winson Cheung, Oncologist

Winson Y. Cheung, MD, MPH, FRCPC is a medical oncologist and a nationally and internationally recognized health services researcher. He is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Department of Oncology at the University of Calgary where he is also the Chair and Provincial Director of the Health Services Research Program at Cancer Control Alberta.

Dr. Cheung received his medical degree at the University of British Columbia, medical oncology subspecialty training at the University of Toronto and subsequently obtained a Master of Public Health degree at Harvard University. He specializes in the management of gastrointestinal malignancies. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including the National Cancer Institute of Canada Dorothy Lamont Award, the Novartis Oncology Young Canadian Investigator Mentor Award, the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer Investigator Award, and several consecutive Merit Awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He has secured over 5 million dollars in grant funding.

Dr. Cheung’s primary research interest is health services and outcomes research, including patient reported outcomes, quality of life, and economic analyses. His projects focus on understanding the interplay of various patient, physician, system, and cost level factors that drive practice patterns in the real world setting and learning how these processes can be modified to better inform care. The overarching goal of his work is to ensure that cancer care is appropriately accessed and delivered to patients in the most cost-effective manner. To date, he has published over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Christopher Longo, Health Economist

Dr. Longo has over 30 years’ experience in clinical research, economic evaluation, and access strategies for pharmaceuticals. He has published clinical, economic, and policy research in several therapeutic areas including cancer, diabetes, sepsis, and mental health disorders. He teaches courses in health economics and population health at McMaster and has taught a 5-week module on health economics in public health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto (2009- 2016). His research has examined the economics of cancer and diabetes, economic evaluation of pharmaceuticals, global pharmaceutical pricing strategies, the public/private mix in the financing of healthcare, and the evaluation of factors influencing patients’ financial burden for health care services. Although still interested in these issues and how they relate to the healthcare system and its end users, he has refocused his research agenda. His current research examines the costs and economic evaluation of interventions/programs throughout the cancer journey, with the intent of informing policy decision making.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Dr. Christian Kollmannsberger, Oncologist

Dr. Kollmannsberger, is a staff medical oncologist at the British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA) Vancouver Cancer Centre and Clinical Professor at the University of British Columbia. He graduated from the Technical University in Munich, Germany and received his clinical training in internal medicine, haematology and medical oncology, mainly at University of Tuebingen, Germany. Dr. Kollmannsberger's research is focused on genito-urinary malignancies with a special interest in testicular and renal cell cancer. This includes phase I, II and III clinical trials, the development of new therapeutic options and investigation of mechanisms of treatment resistance. Nationally and internationally, he has contributed to numerous trials in the field of renal cell carcinoma and testicular cancer. His research has been published in peer reviewed journals that include the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, Annals of Oncology, the European Journal of Cancer, Cancer and the British Journal of Cancer. He has repeatedly served as faculty for the Annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, and the Annual Meeting of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO). Currently, Dr. Kollmannsberger serves as chair of the BC Cancer Agency Genitourinary Cancers Systemic Therapy Group, chair for the Genitourinary Clinical Trials Unit at BC Cancer Vancouver Centre, chair for the Canadian Clinical Trials Group Testis Cancer Disease Oriented Group, and member of the Canadian Clinical Trials Group Kidney Cancer Disease Oriented Group.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Dominika Wranik, Economist

Dr. W. Dominika Wranik is a health policy and economics researcher, and a Professor in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She considers many of the challenges facing our health care system to be due to insufficient or inefficiently used resources, including providers, technologies, and budgets. Dr. Wranik's research focuses on the application of economic principles in health care policies. She has been involved in Canadian Health Technologies Assessment (HTA) since 2007, when she joined a provincial cancer HTA committee in Nova Scotia. She has been involved with CADTH's pan-Canadian Oncology Drug Review as an economic guidance panel lead (2015-2018) and as a member of the Expert Review Committee (2018 to present). She has published studies of HTA processes in Canada and Europe, in which she investigates the use of economic evidence in the presence of multiple evidence streams and uncertainty.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Daryl Bell, Patient

Daryl received his Master’s of Divinity degree from Queen’s University and completed a 2-year Clinical Pastoral Education residency at Hartford Hospital in Hartford Connecticut. He has worked in the health care field as a Spiritual Health Practitioner and Lead for Patient and Family Centred Care from 1990 through to his retirement in 2019. During that time, he has worked with literally hundreds of people who were dealing with a cancer diagnosis and weighing their treatment options. Daryl also has personal experience with cancer having received a prostate cancer diagnosis in 2009, undergoing surgery and then treatment for a reoccurrence of that cancer in 2013. Daryl has been a proponent for active, meaningful patient participation in healthcare at the local, provincial, and national levels.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Dr. Michael Crump, Oncologist

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Dr. Jennifer Bell, Ethicist

Dr. Jennifer A.H. Bell is a bioethicist and psychosocial oncology researcher at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, Canada. She is an assistant professor (status only) in the University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and member of the Joint Centre for Bioethics. Jennifer received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, specializing in bioethics, from the University of Toronto, a master’s degree in philosophy and biomedical ethics from McGill University, and a PhD in interdisciplinary studies (bioethics and psychosocial oncology) from the University of British Columbia. She is an alumna of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Psychosocial Oncology Research Training (PORT), and Ethics of Health Research and Policy training programs. Jennifer’s program of research addresses urgent ethical issues at the frontier of psychosocial oncology and cancer care through the use of empirical and normative bioethics, critical and feminist methodologies, and qualitative and mixed methods. Innovative discovery, precision medicine, and breakthrough therapies are fast emerging as sources of hope for people with cancer. These revolutionary advances in cancer care also pose significant ethical issues for professionals and patients, such as equitable access, safeguarding the vulnerable from known and potential harms (especially those facing limited treatment options), as well as the emergence of new ethical dilemmas that often accompany complex medical innovation. Jennifer’s current research addresses ethical issues at the forefront of complex decisions in cancer care, with specific research aims under the themes of novel therapeutics, clinical trials, and medical assistance in dying. Jennifer’s research is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, Colorectal Cancer Canada, University of Toronto, and the Global Institute of Psychosocial, Palliative and End-of-Life Care.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Adam Raymakers, Senior Health Economist

Dr. Adam Raymakers is a Senior Health Economist in department of Cancer Control Research at BC Cancer (Vancouver, British Columbia). He is also a post-doctoral fellow in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. He holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in economics from Dalhousie University (Halifax, Nova Scotia), a MSc in Health Economics, Policy, and Law from Erasmus University (Rotterdam, the Netherlands), and a PhD in health economics and pharmacoepidemiology from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, British Columbia). He has also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the economic evaluation of medical devices with the J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics at the National University of Ireland Galway (Galway, Ireland). Adam also serves as an editor at the journals: Health Policy and Technology, BMC Health Services Research, and Frontiers in Health Services.

Adam’s research interests lay in the areas of economic evaluation of new therapies. He is currently funded by a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR) Research Trainee Award to explore issues around the cost effectiveness of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies and gene therapies and adoptive cell therapies more broadly. Additional research interests include drug policy and approval/reimbursement processes, evidence assessment and uncertainty, the role of equity in the delivery of health care, and the intersection of health services research and climate change.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Dr. Anca Prica, Hematologist

Dr. Anca Prica is a staff hematologist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and assistant professor in the division of hematology at University of Toronto, appointed in 2014. She is currently the site lead of the lymphoma and myeloma program at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. She did her initial medical training in Toronto, and her clinical training in internal medicine and hematology in the University of Toronto Program. She then did a 2-year fellowship in malignant hematology at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and a master’s in health research methodology at McMaster University, with research interests in quality of life and economic evaluations. Anca’s clinical work focuses in both lymphoproliferative and plasma cell disorders, as well as autologous stem cell transplantation and CAR T-cell therapy. Her research interests focus on health services research, particularly economic evaluations, and decision analyses for oncologic questions, examining resource use and cost of care, as well as toxicity of chemotherapies, and their effects on quality of life and caregiver burden.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Amy Peasgood, Patient

Amy Peasgood earned her LL.B. from Dalhousie University in 2005 and has been diagnosed with 4 types of cancer since 2006, including Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) in 2014. During this time, Ms. Peasgood was diagnosed with a genetic cancer predisposition called Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS), which inspired her to write a children’s book about LFS with her daughter. Over the years, Amy has volunteered to promote family engagement in research; shed light on the mental health challenges that often accompany a cancer diagnosis; and raised awareness of MBC and LFS. She has also shared her story through public speaking engagements, in personal essays, and online communications, in the hopes of building the patient voice and supporting those who face similar challenges. Amy lives in Kelowna, British Columbia with her husband and 2 daughters.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Dr. Patricia Tang, Oncologist

Dr. Patricia Tang is a medical oncologist at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre and a Clinical Associate Professor at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. She specializes in the treatment of breast and gastrointestinal malignancies.

Patricia obtained her Bachelor of Medical Science Degree (Distinction) and Medical Doctorate (Distinction with Honours in Research) from the University of Alberta where she also completed her internal medicine training. After medical oncology residency at the University of Calgary, she completed an Investigational New Drug Fellowship at Princess Margaret Hospital, University of Toronto. As the Provincial Gastrointestinal Cancer Tumour Group Leader for Alberta, she is involved in development of clinical practice guidelines and pathways. Patricia is the centre representative to the Canadian Cancer Clinical Trials Group for Calgary, a member of the OICR Clinical Trials Subcommittee, and was awarded the Ralph Meyer Phase III Program Young Investigator Award in 2016. She has reviewed grants for Breast Cancer Now (UK), the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, and Pancreatic Cancer Canada. Dr. Tang’s research interests include clinical trials and health services research. She is a co-investigator on Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Terry Fox Research Initiative funded grants. A member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Nucleus Committee for Medical Oncology, Patricia received the 2016 Luminary Award for Teaching in the Department of Oncology.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure