Biologics and Biosimilars

Linda Wilhelm is the President of The Canadian Arthritis Patient Alliance, a national, volunteer, patient driven organization that has worked to improve the lives of people living with arthritis since 2002. She is co-chair of the Steering Committee for the Chronic Pain Strategy for Patient Oriented Research (SPOR) Network, as well as a member of the networks patient advisory committee. She is also a member of The Evidence Alliance (SPOR) Network. Linda has participated in past Health Canada expert advisory panels and numerous conferences concerning access and drug safety issues. She is a former member of both the Expert Advisory Committee for Vigilance of Health Products and the Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network’s steering committee. Ms. Wilhelm has been an active advocate for treatment access and quality of care for all patients both regionally and nationally for over twenty years and is a past board chair for the New Brunswick Division of the Arthritis Society. Ms. Wilhelm has been living with Rheumatoid Arthritis for over thirty five years. Ms. Wilhelm is a recipient of the Queen’s Jubilee Golden and Diamond Medal and the 2015 Arthritis Alliance of Canada Qualman/Davies Patient and Consumer Leadership Award.

Laurie Proulx has lived with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis for over 25 years and it is her experiences that led to her involvement in the Canadian Arthritis Patient Alliance (CAPA), a grass-roots patient driven and managed organization. Through her involvement with CAPA, she advocates for patient-centred health care policies and practices for people living with arthritis and has worked extensively as a patient partner in research and with various health care organizations. Professionally, she works as a human resources specialist and works to put clients or end users at the centre of everything.

Shannon Kelly currently manages and works as a senior research methodologist in the Heath Technology Assessment Unit of the Cardiovascular Research Methods Centre (CRMC) at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute where she focusses her work on advancing the science of evidence synthesis, research design and methodology. Her team conducts evidence syntheses to inform health care practice and policy. In this capacity, she has worked with a number of organizations nationally and internationally, including the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), the Public Health Agency of Canada, the World Health Organization and the Cochrane Collaboration.

Shannon is currently a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Medicine, School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa and a trainee with the Cardiovascular Network of Canada (CANet) National Centre of Excellence. In her capacity with CANet, she sits on the Board of Directors. Shannon has been actively involved with post-market Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network (DSEN) since 2011 and has led numerous research projects for the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network, the Canadian Collaboration for Network Meta-analysis (CCNMA), the Methods and Application Group for Indirect Comparisons (DSEN- MAGIC) and the POst-market Drug Evaluation Team (PODET). In addition, Shannon leading a working group to develop nutrition-specific risk of bias tools (NUQUEST).