Saskatoon Luncheon: Two Perspectives on the Role of Biosimilar Drugs

Richard York is Associate Director of Private Drug Plans at Merck Canada Inc.

In his 25 years at Merck, Richard has served in a variety of key commercial and policy positions. Twelve of those years have been dedicated to working in the public and private drug reimbursement environment. Other roles have included Sales Management, Marketing, and Government Relations.

In his current position, Richard works across Merck’s diverse array of medicines and vaccines in key therapeutic areas as Diabetes, Hepatitis C, Respiratory Disease, Cancer, and Infectious Diseases.

Richard is very familiar with the complex challenges facing plan sponsors and drug benefit providers today in their efforts to ensure that drug benefit programs remain affordable, sustainable, and of high quality to plan members.

Durhane Wong-Rieger is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders (the umbrella organization of patients and patient groups) and chair of the Consumer Advocare Network, a national network for patient engagement in healthcare policy and advocacy. She is also President and Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Optimizing Health Outcomes (providing training and direct service on health coaching and patient self-management). Internationally, Wong-Rieger is past-chair of the International Alliance of Patient Organizations, board member of Rare Disease International, member of Health Technology Assessment International Patient/Citizen Involvement Interest Group and member of the editorial board of The Patient-Patient Centred Outcomes Research. She is a certified health coach and licensed T-Trainer with the Stanford-based Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions. Wong-Rieger has served on numerous health policy advisory committees and panels and is a member of the Patient Liaison Forum for the Canadian Drugs and Technologies in Health.

Wong-Rieger has a PhD in psychology from McGill University and was professor at the University of Windsor, Canada from 1984-1999, She is married and has two children. She is a trainer, a frequent lecturer, and an author of three books and many articles.