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 Policy and 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

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

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

Dr. Phillip Blanchette MSc, MD, FRCPC

Dr. Blanchette received his MD from the University of Ottawa in 2009 and postgraduate training in Internal Medicine (2009–2012) and Medical Oncology (2012–2014) at the University of Toronto. Thereafter, Dr. Blanchette completed a specialized breast cancer fellowship at the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre (2014–2016). He also completed a master’s degree in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation in 2016.

Dr. Blanchette’s clinical and research expertise is in breast and lung cancer. He has been a medical oncologist at the London Regional Cancer Program of the London Health Sciences Centre since 2016 and is currently an Associate Professor of Oncology at the University of Western Ontario. His research specializes in health services with a focus on cancer clinical outcomes, health equity, and drug safety. Dr. Blanchette is an adjunct scientist at the Institute of Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and an active member of Ontario Health’s breast cancer clinical practice guideline and drug advisory committees.  

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Yoo-Joung Ko, MD, MMSc, SM, FRCP(C)

Staff Medical Oncologist, St. Michael’s Hospital; Unity Health 
Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Dr. Yoo-Joung Ko graduated from, and completed his internal medicine training at, the University of Toronto before moving to Boston, where he completed his fellowship training in hematology and oncology at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. During the fellowship, Dr. Ko completed a Master of Medical Sciences at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Following the fellowship, he stayed on as faculty and was funded by a career award from the National Cancer Institute. During this time, he also completed a Master of Science in Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. Since returning to Canada, he has focused his efforts on gastrointestinal malignancies and medical education. He is the prior chair of the gastrointestinal cancer group at the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre. He is interested in clinical trials and has been the principal investigator of several of multicentre investigator-initiated studies. His interest in research ethics led him to serve as a vice-chair and chair of the Ontario Cancer Research Ethics Board . He has also completed the Master Teacher Program and has won several teaching awards both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. In addition, he is the Oncology section editor at DynaMed, an online medical resource. He is currently the program medical director of Unity Health’s Oncology and Endoscopy program. 

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Kelvin Chan, MD, MSc, PhD

Dr. Kelvin Chan is a medical oncologist at Sunnybrook Hospital’s Odette Cancer Centre, a professor at the University of Toronto, and an associate scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute. He specializes in gastrointestinal oncology and head and neck oncology.

As a clinical epidemiologist and biostatistician, Dr. Chan’s research interests include health services research, health technology assessment, meta-analysis including network meta-analysis, cost-effectiveness analyses, and statistical methods research in health economics. He is codirector of the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control (ARCC).

Professionally, Dr. Chan has an interest in issues related to cancer drug reimbursement. He is a member of multiple provincial and national committees that focus on cancer drug assessments and recommendations, including the Committee to Evaluate Drug (CED) and the Ontario Steering Committee of Cancer Drugs (OSCCD). He is also the clinical lead for the Provincial Drug Reimbursement Programs (PDRP) at Ontario Health.

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Terry Hawrysh, MSc, PEng

Terry Hawrysh is a blood cancer survivor and proponent for a health care system that consistently delivers superior patient outcomes and experiences. As a stage IV cancer survivor, he has experienced the benefits and challenges that patients and their families face while navigating the diagnosis, treatment, and post-treatment phases of their care. Reflecting on his own cancer journey has led to an interest in the application of patient engagement in cancer research and the impactful contributions it can achieve. 

He currently serves as vice-chair of the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research Patient Family Advisory Committee, where he applies his lived experience as a cancer survivor to a variety of innovative translational research programs. He also contributes his time as a patient partner and patient advisor to the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Clinical Trials Ontario, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada, the University of Toronto’s Centre for Sustainable Health Systems, and Ontario Health.

Terry is a professional engineer and holds degrees in engineering from the University of Toronto and Queen’s University. He has held senior corporate roles in the utility infrastructure and green energy sectors and has also cofounded and operated several innovative start-ups. 

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Jennifer Fishman, PhD

Jennifer Fishman is an associate professor in the Biomedical Ethics Unit and the Department of the Social Studies of Medicine, and an associate member of the Sociology Department and the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University . She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Fishman is a sociologist of science, technology, and medicine. She uses empirical qualitative methods to describe and analyze the emergence of new medical knowledge and technologies, from the early stages of development to their integration into clinical practice and dissemination to clinicians and patients. Often referred to as “empirical ethics,” she analyzes the oft unexamined and presumptive ethics and values within new scientific enterprises and how these impact research trajectories, technological diffusion and commercialization, and ultimately patients and consumers. She has studied new pharmaceutical drug development and advertising, anti-aging science and medicine, direct-to-consumer genetic risk susceptibility testing, end-of-life medical decisions, prenatal genetic carrier testing panels, and the promise of personalized genomic medicine. Her new project will examine the early translation of epigenetic research and knowledge into public health and media messages to prospective parents. 

Conflict of Interest Disclosure