Meet the Panelists
Opening Remarks:
Honourable Nate Glubish, Minister of Technology and Innovation MLA, Strathcona/ Sherwood Park
Nate Glubish was sworn in as Minister of Technology and Innovation on October 24, 2022. Before that, he served as Minister of Service Alberta since April 30, 2019.
Prior to entering politics, Minister Glubish spent 15 years as a venture capital investor, where he invested in and helped build dozens of Alberta-based technology companies. As Minister of Technology and Innovation, he is focused on ways government could harness technology to provide better public services at a better cost and higher value to Albertans.
Keynote Speaker:
Isadore Day, Founder, CEO, Bimaadzwin
Isadore Day, Wiindawtegowinini, is an Anishinaabe from Serpent River First Nation. He is of the Genozhe ndodem (Northern Pike Clan). He brings many years of political and policy expertise. A former Regional Chief of Ontario, Lake Huron Region Grand Chief and Vice Chair of the North Shore Tribal Council, he has served 15 years as an elected leader for First Nations and has handled various high-level policy files. He is hereditary to Chief Shingwauk, Wiindawtegowinini and Genebek, who signed the Robinson-Huron Treaty and the Manitoulin Treaty and were allies to the British Crown in the War of 1812.
Isadore Day has been involved in various boards and committees; at both regional and national levels over the past two decades while remaining a strong grassroots visionary. With a background in Social Sciences, Business, Public Administration and Governance – he is a firm believer that education that is culturally rooted and is bridged into mainstream disciplines is essential to success. His most noted accomplishment was repatriating First Nation children back to his First Nation from mainstream foster care systems. He has been an energy policy leader, community developer and a tireless advocate for First Nation treaty rights.
Isadore Day’s main focus is on Nationhood rights and Sovereignty; and specifically, the improvement in First Nation health, social, economy conditions of current and future generations. Isadore is emphatic that the Indian Act is colonial oppression and at the root of what must change in all First Nations – he vows to maintain and refine his life’s mission to be focused on reconstituting Indigenous Nations on Turtle Island.
About the Showcase Sessions 1 & 2:
Value Based Medicine:
Value-Based Medicine: An innovative approach to determining cost of therapies based on impact, not budget.
Panelists:
Alaine Grand, Vice President, Market Access & Strategic Customers, Janssen Inc.
Alaine Grand is the Vice President, Market Access & Strategic Customers for Janssen Inc., a pharmaceutical company of Johnson & Johnson. In her current role, Ms. Grand is responsible for leading the development of strategies to effectively navigate Canada’s drug reimbursement and health policy environment to obtain access for Janssen’s innovative medications for Canadian patients. She is also a member of Janssen’s Leadership Team and contributes to the strategic direction and overall management of Janssen’s Canadian operations.
Ms. Grand has worked within the pharmaceutical industry for over 20 years. She initially began her career in the legal function and later transitioned into a business leadership role. She has a Bachelor of Social Work degree from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Calgary.
Chad Mitchell, Assistant Deputy Minister for the Pharmaceutical and Supplementary Benefits Division, Alberta Health
Chad Mitchell is the Assistant Deputy Minister for the Pharmaceutical and Supplementary Benefits Division at Alberta Health. He provides leadership to a high performing team responsible for drug and health benefit programs, Alberta Health Care Insurance plan, interprovincial health agreements, Alberta blood and plasma and the Alberta Organ Donation Registry. Also, he is the Vice-Chair of the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance and a board member of the Canadian Agency for Drug and Technologies in Health. With his background as a pharmacist with a master’s degree focused in the area of health outcomes research, he has worked in community, ambulatory and acute care settings. Chad worked for a number of years with Alberta Health, Alberta Health Services, and the Alliance for Canadian Health Outcomes Research in Diabetes (ACHORD) through the Institute of Health Economics and the private pharmaceutical sector.
Tara Cowling, Founder and President, Medilor Health Outcomes Research Ltd.
Tara founded Medlior Health Outcomes Research Ltd. in 2008 with a vision for pioneering the future of healthcare with data driven solutions. Tara has over 20 years of health outcomes research experience in both public sector and industry. Including roles with Alberta Health Services, AstraZeneca, IQVIA, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK.
Dr. Kate Harback, CEO, Insitute of Health Economics
Prior to appointment as CEO, Dr. Harback served as the Director of Economics at the Institute of Health Economics (IHE). She has over 15 years of experience leading work in applied economics for diverse stakeholders in Canada and the United States. At IHE, she has managed economic research for Alberta Health, lead work on economic evaluation of mental health interventions, and diverse set of projects for regional governments, non-profits, and universities. Leveraging previous experience in aviation and transportation economics, she led efforts focused on transportation within the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) funded One Society Network.
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Precision Medicine
This presentation highlights the collaboration between Alberta Health Services (AHS), the University of Alberta’s College of Health Sciences, and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for precision health. AHS is the largest integrated health system in Canada, and has developed a comprehensive data warehouse to collect and protect health data, enabling the construction of large population-level datasets. However, a significant portion of digital health data is stored in unstructured medical text and images, requiring extraction for research and improvement purposes. Traditionally, this process has been manual and time-consuming. However, recent advancements in natural language processing have led to the development of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, which can unlock valuable information from unstructured data, providing access to actionable health data. The integration of AI technologies, particularly LLMs, shows great potential for enhancing healthcare outcomes and efficiency. The collaboration between AHS, the University of Alberta, and Amii aims to leverage these advancements to improve precision health and expand access to valuable health data.
Panelists:
Dr. Ross Mitchell, Fellow & Canada CIFAR AI Chair, Alberta Machine Intelligence Insitute
Dr. Mitchell is a CIFAR Canada AI Chair and the inaugural Alberta Health Services (AHS) Chair in AI in Health. He is a Professor in the Department of Medicine, and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Alberta. He is also a Fellow with the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute and the Senior Program Director of AI Adoption with AHS. Dr. Mitchell was the inaugural AI Officer at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida from 2019 to 2021. He was also a Professor of Radiology at Mayo Clinic in Arizona from 2011 to 2019 and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Radiology, and Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Calgary from 2000 to 2011. He received his PhD at the University of Western Ontario and has been working in the fields of biomedical imaging, artificial intelligence, and machine learning in healthcare for 30 years.
Logan Caragata, Director, Chapter Lead Policy & Healthcare Ecosystem, Roche Pharmaceutical Canada
Logan is the Head of Policy, Healthcare Ecosystem & Government Affairs at Roche
Canada. As a senior leader for one of Canada’s leading innovative pharmaceutical
companies, Logan is responsible for leading a team across the country accountable for
public policy and regional market access while managing relations with all levels of
Canadian governments, payers, hospital institutional leaders, industry and professional
associations, and academic institutions.
He also acts as the Chief of Staff to the affiliate President & CEO, providing strategic
advice while supporting her government and industry association engagement and
stakeholder outreach efforts.
Prior to this role, he was the Director of Federal Government Affairs and Policy, leading
Roche’s interactions with the federal government in Ottawa and Roche’s overall national
policy strategy.
Before joining Roche Canada in 2016, Logan worked for a number of years as a public
servant in the Ministry of Health at the Government of Alberta and had previous industry
experience with Novartis Pharmaceuticals.
He has a Masters degree in Public Policy and Public Administration from Concordia
University in Montréal and two Bachelor of Arts degrees, in Political Science from
Concordia University and in History from the University of Saskatchewan.
About the Policy Sessions 3 & 4:
Pathways – Developing Indigenous Partnerships to Improve Health Outcomes:
The Pathways Framework: How to partner with the indigenous community to establish true impact and positive health outcomes for providers as well as the community.
Panelists:
Danny L'Abbe, Health Policy and Patient Access Manager, Alberta/Saskatchewan, Boehringer Ingelheim Canada Ltd.
Farid Foroud, AVP, Health and Life Sciences, Global Public Affairs
Farid has two decades of experience within Health and Life Sciences sector in Canada. He has worked in
industry, academia and government and has a deep understanding of commercialization from discovery
and research of novel health technologies to re-imbursement and market access within the Canadian
health care setting. In addition, Farid has been involved in health research and innovation policy at the
Government of Alberta. Currently, Farid is the Associate Vice President and head of the Health and Life
Sciences practice for Western Canada at Global Public Affairs.
Prior to joining the Global Public Affairs team, Farid was the Director of Biopharmaceuticals within
Alberta’s Ministry of Economic Development & Trade & Tourism, where he was responsible for
partnerships, innovation and overall sector growth for the province’s biopharmaceutical and health
sector. In his role with Alberta Government he led the formation of many provincial partnerships
between multinational pharmaceutical companies, non-profits and the Government of Alberta. These
partnerships brought innovation based investments to the province and allowed for multi-partner
collaborations between the industrial expertise of pharma companies and the Alberta’s health
innovation expertise to develop the next generation of health solutions.
Farid has also worked with business accelerator TEC Edmonton, where he supported innovators and
companies in business planning, market analysis and technology transfer activities within the health and
life sciences area. Additionally, Farid was involved in creation of many health start ups during his time at
TEC Edmonton. Prior in joining TEC Edmonton, Farid worked in Biotechnology and Environmental
Science type companies in Alberta both as scientist and as business development professional.
At Global Public Affairs Farid is leading the health and life sciences mandates throughout Western
Canada, supporting clients on government relations, market entry/access strategy, and public policy
initiatives around life sciences innovation and adoption.
Farid holds a Bachelor of Science majoring in Biochemistry from the University of Lethbridge and a
Masters of Biomedical Technology from the University of Calgary.
Mehmood Alibhai Director, Patient Access & National Policy Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd.
Policy and Patient Access role with three global research and development pharmaceutical companies.
Joined Boehringer Ingelheim Canada in 2014.
As Director, National Policy and Patient Access, lead the development and implementation of public policy focused on strategic partnerships with public/ private institutional/ NGO policy makers/ influencers.
Led the first successful completion of panCanadian purchasing negotiations for our stroke prevention treatment.
Education in Science at the University of British Columbia
Senior Provincial Director, Diabetes Obesity & Nutrition and Neurosciences, Rehabilitation & Vision SCNs at Alberta Health Services
Balraj Mann is the Senior Provincial Director for the Diabetes, Obesity & Nutrition (DON) and the Neurosciences, Rehabilitation & Vision (NRV) Strategic Clinical Networks™ (SCNs) where she supports growth, innovation, and excellence to move mountains in these populations. She is a registered nurse with over 25 years of experience spanning the health continuum including front-line operations, benchmarking, and health systems and service planning at a provincial, zonal, and local level.
Over the past many years, she has supported work in the areas of improving quality and access to stroke and cardiac care, development of end-to-end clinical pathways, and vascular risk reduction, with a focus on improving quality through better quality management, using technology to support advancement in care and reducing inequities in care and outcomes. Her scope includes quality improvement, change leadership and system transformation through applied evidence, analytics and collaborative partnerships. Balraj holds a Master of Science/Master of Business Administration from Boston, Mass. Her passion lies with making a difference in the health system and working with brilliantly passionate teams.
Hon. Rick Wilson, Minister of Indigenous Relations
Kathy Lepine, Northern Metis Settlements
Jordanna Lambert, Senior Operating Officer, Alberta Health Services
Dr. Breanne Everett, CEO, Orpyx Medical Technologies
Alberta’s Talent Challenge – Growing the Skills and Capacity of Alberta’s Life Science Sector
Panelists:
Andrew MacIsaac, CEO, Applied Pharmaceutical Innovations (API)
Andrew MacIsaac is the CEO at Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation (API), an industry-led not-for-profit organization that serves as a catalyst to support the development of life science products and companies.
Prior to API, Andrew MacIsaac served as the Assistant Dean at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and held various roles in the Alberta School of Business and UBC Sauder School of Business.
With a background in economics and public sector management, Andrew has successfully built bridges between academia, industry, philanthropy, and government to further economic growth and societal impact. Andrew has been part of and overseen projects that have led to over $700 million in economic impact. Andrew is also a recipient of the 2022 Edifier Award for his work with API.
Andrew has served on the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Life Science Strategy Council; the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce Policy Committee; the Province of Alberta Research Commercialization Working Group and Edmonton Metro Region Economic Recovery Working Group; the Calgary Life Sciences Innovation Hub Steering Committee; the Edmonton Health City Steering Committee; and several other company boards and advisory groups.
Dr. Jared Davis, Co-Founder, President &CTO, Northern RNA
Dr. Jared Davis is a well-respected and experienced leader in the mRNA manufacturing and mRNA therapeutics field. He was the Vice President of Technical Operations and Manufacturing at Arcturus Therapeutics of San Diego, CA. He led the design and implementation of the manufacturing processes used in the Arcturus clinical programs. While at Arcturus, Davis was named an inventor on multiple patents and was a key team member in the transition of Arcturus from a pre-clinical status to more mature stages. Currently, Jared is the President of Providence Therapeutics. He will guide the team through the transition to becoming a clinical company, with its Phase I clinical trial for the PTX-COVID19-B vaccine for Covid-19. Jared graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.S. in Biochemistry. He then received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying under Dr. Sam Butcher. Following that he completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University under Dr. Scott Strobel.
Rob Henderson, President & CEO BioTalent Canada
Rob Henderson is a seasoned executive with more than 25 years of private and public sector management experience. Since joining the company in 2011, BioTalent Canada has grown to become the talent driver behind life-changing science in Canada.
When Rob joined BioTalent Canada, it employed five people. Today, the head count has grown to its current contingent of more than 40. He helped determine the organization’s unique value proposition and market niche which enabled him to build a network of more than 60 partner organizations.
Under Rob’s guidance, BioTalent Canada has engaged with government, employers, industry associations, post-secondary institutions, immigrant serving agencies, and service providers. Together, this dynamic network strengthens skills, connects job-ready talent to industry, and creates opportunities. Its proven performance provides industry with funding, HR resources, and labour market intelligence to help companies successfully build their teams.
Robb Stoddard President & CEO
Robb has focused much of his career on fundamentally changing the way organizations do business, using technology as a strategic enabler. As co-founder of a successful consultancy, he has worked with health and technology companies of all sizes. Robb builds and executes business development plans and engagement strategies and advocates for policy and regulatory changes at municipal, provincial and federal levels. His extensive executive management experience stems from more than 15 years of public service, including serving the Government of Alberta as Assistant Commissioner of Labour Employment Practices, Corporate CIO and Chief Strategist, and Director of Operations, Office of the Premier.
