this year promises to be another filled with interesting conversations, dynamic dialogues and learning, lots of learning – across the globe. learning from different experiences, various perspectives, understanding how things are done outside of canada and taking those learnings and understandings and translating them into a canadian context – creating a best of platform within colab framework. of course, there are also the opportunities to take what we have done throughout the last year and let others know what we’ve done here at colab, in canada.
here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming up in the next few months
in february I’ll be headed to ottawa for the walrus leadership dinner- the walrus leadership dinners are invitation-only gatherings of senior business, media, academic, policy, and political leaders who come together to discuss the most complex issues facing our country. i have been invited amongst fifty of canada’s top leaders and decision makers for an intimate, invitation only, off the record dinner to discuss the current state of health care policy and its future. We invite you to contribute to this lively conversation about the challenges faced by policy makers, industry leaders, and canadian patients.
this march I’ll be heading out to berlin to attend the international patient experience exchange for patient organizations [IEEPO]. an industry organized event that brings together invited patient advocates from across the globe to engage and exchange. this year’s theme will once again focus on personalized healthcare, but rather than just participate I’m hoping to use this opportunity to create a paper to help shape and inform personalized medicine in oncology in canada and as a resource for personalized medicine awareness month coming up later this year in november. whilst in europe, I will be heading over to amsterdam to attend the medicines for europe 18th biosimilars conference. this year’s conference will be focused on reshaping the access landscape for biosimilars- covering the contribution of biosimilar medicines to broader access, earlier access and future access. of course, europe’s experience with biosimilars is so much more comprehensive and varied than our own here in canada, and the goal will be to understand what best practices have been implemented across europe to shape the landscape and allow for access that is broader and earlier, and to hear how they are looking at the future of biosimilars, especially with new drugs coming off patent within the next few years.
in april, I’ll be heading over to edinburgh, scotland to attend the international alliance of patient organizations [IAPO] global patient congress. IAPO is a unique global alliance representing patients of all nations across all disease areas and promoting patient centred healthcare across the world. essentially, the global voice for patient centred healthcare. this will be my first time attending an IAPO event and topics covered through the two day congress include personalized medicine, healthcare decision making, big data and value based healthcare.
from edinburgh, I’ll be headed to toronto to assist in CADTH’s annual symposium and then the conference board of canada’s second summit on value based healthcare later in the month. as more and more focus is being spent on value based healthcare, and how it seeks to improve patient outcomes while creating more sustainable healthcare systems. sounds right up my alley.
there will be reports and blog posts, providing more context and recapping the events and the learnings for each of these events and you can follow along by using the #travelwithcolab.