AIHI Seminar Series 2017 - Professor Emeritus Joel Lexchin

The focus of this talk will be on drug approval mechanisms that aim to get new medications on the market more quickly in the United States and Canada. It will look specifically at how often they are used and the postmarket safety of drugs that have gone through these programs and finally discuss why the reasons for the increased use of these program, especially in the US.

Joel Lexchin received his MD from the University of Toronto in 1977 and for the past 28 years has been an emergency physician at the University Health Network.

He taught healthy policy in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University from 2001 to 2016 and is now a Professor Emeritus at York.

He has been a consultant on pharmaceutical issues for the province of Ontario, various arms of the Canadian federal government, the World Health Organization, the government of New Zealand and the Australian National Prescribing Service.

He is a frequent outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical industry and the way that Health Canada regulates drugs.

His book Private profits versus public policy: the pharmaceutical industry and the Canadian state was published by University of Toronto Press in September 2016 and his next book on the relationship between the Canadian medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry is due out in May 2017.