Pharmacy is changing fast — faster than anyone expected. In this special live episode of I’m Pharmacy, recorded at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, host Mina Tadrous brings together a panel of pharmacists, physicians, learners, and educators to ask a big, urgent question: How do we turn scattered progress in Ontario’s healthcare system into coordinated, collaborative, patient-centred care?

You’ll hear candid stories from the front lines of both pharmacy and family medicine — from the rapid rise of minor ailment prescribing to the immense pressures reshaping primary care. Panelists share what’s working, what’s breaking, and what absolutely must change.

Download now and join the conversation.

A few years ago, a bus full of Americans crossed the border into Canada with Senator Bernie Sanders. They weren't coming for sightseeing. They came to buy insulin.

Unlike the bus of patients heading north for insulin, most Americans can't simply cross a border to escape the system. They live with it every day. How the U.S. end up with the most expensive drug pricing in the world?

In this episode, we discuss the current state of drug pricing in the United States with pharmaceutical policy pioneer Dr. Jerry Avorn, Professor at Harvard Medical School and author of Rethinking Medication: Truth, Power and the Drugs you Take.

Learn more: http://www.rethinkmeds.info/

Trump’s Whitehouse is at war with national funding institutions, pausing hundreds of research projects both nationally and internationally. How are Canadian researchers coping with widespread funding cuts, and who pays the price when science is under attack?

Featuring:

• Bradly Wouters, executive vice-president science and research, University Health Network

• Adam Bjorndahl, associate professor, Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University

We're baaaaaack! Season Five launches September 17. As a sneak peek of what's to come, we sat down with Dr. Mike Fralick on the Rounds Table to chat about the upcoming season, musings on the future of AI and drug discovery, and whether Mike can hold his own in a 90's-style rap battle.

Check out episode one of our new season, launching September 17.

In the final episode of the season, we continue our discussion exploring the often overlooked consequences of innovation. In the last episode, we focused on the outcomes of new innovation on existing healthcare systems, exploring ethical access and economic influence. Today, we discuss who innovation can leave behind, and why it is essential that medical breakthroughs benefit everyone.

Featuring:

Jaris Swidrovich

Assistant Professor and Indigenous Engagement Lead, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Founder and Chair, Indigenous Pharmacy Professionals of Canada

Hagar Labouta,

Assistant Professor, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Scientist, Keenan Research Center for Biomedical Science, Unity Health Toronto

Like a train moving at a fast pace, innovation can feel unstoppable. In many ways, the only path is forward.

But like all good things, we must take a pause to ensure we aren't blinded with the excitement of potential and hope. To end the season, we wanted to use the next two episodes to do just that—pause and explore what we must and should consider as we create this new future with innovations. We'll delve into the ethics of access, probing into who truly owns innovation and whether there are alternative ways to incentivize groundbreaking advancements.

So join us as we ask ourselves—and you—to consider this.

Featured Guests:

Dr. Alison Thompson

Associate Professor, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy & Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Dr. Quinn Grundy

Assistant Professor Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Governance, Accountability and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Sector

The internet is full of examples of failed innovations... The Segway, The PalmPilot, MySpace... tech that started revolutions, but failed to scale. This phenomenon is not specific to Silicon Valley. In fact, it is very present in healthcare.

On this episode of the I'm Pharmacy Podcast, we chat diffusion and implementation. What can innovators learn from failed innovatrions to better navigate the healthcare market? Chatting with industry experts, we will explore in the world of developing interventions, and the emerging excitement of artificial intelligence in healthcare.

Featured guests:

Dr. Jeremy Grimshaw

Senior Scientist at The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute,

Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa

Dr. Muhammad Mamdani

Vice President of Data Science and Advanced Analytics at Unity Health Toronto

Director, U of T's Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Education and Research and Medicine

Professor (status), Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

So you have a good idea... no, a great idea. The science is solid. The tech is exciting. People are interested. Your innovation and its success seems certain. And yet, you fail to make the jump from an exciting idea to scaling up and being successful.

As we explore the art of prototyping, and early launches, we'll explore how these foundational ideas are assessed for market fit. Join us as we explore the intricate dance of innovation and practicality for each prototype. Together, we'll uncover how these early models are pivotal and paving the way for innovation to really take flight.

Featuring:

Dr. Keith Pardee

Associate Professor, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Canada Research Chair in Synthetic Biology and Human Health

Mike Sullivan

CEO and Co-founder, Cubic Health

Here we go on the path of innovation. On this episode, we build on the pathway of innovation to better understand how change occurs, how the spark of a novel discovery can really kick start this journey. We do believe that all good innovation should be grounded in strong science. But how and where does it start? Where does the initial spark come from? How does the scientist see a discovery and select this path? Do they know this from the onset? Has it shaped the questions they ask? Or is it a mere process that occurs as part of good science.

Featured Guests:

Dr. Molly Shoichet

University Professor

Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Toronto

Dr. Tim Corson,

Professor

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto

Historically, academia has been breeding ground for groundbreaking discoveries. But often these findings remained confined within Academic Journals lacking the pathway to real world applications. However, as technology transfer offices popped up around universities around the world, entrepreneurial programs, catalysts, collaborative initiatives, universities are more and more recognizing the value of translating their research into products and therapies that can benefit society.

As communities around the world grapple with complex health challenges, there's a growing pressure to deliver innovative solutions in a timely manner. This has driven academia to actively engage in commercialization and look at it as a means to fund science students and really just keep the lights on in many labs. So, that's what we'll explore this episode. Why does commercialization take place? Why should academics even bother? And is it a driving force for innovation? We'll learn from some real efforts that have been occurring here at the University of Toronto, and those that have been involved in them.

Featured Guests

Dr. Paul Santerre

Professor & Baxter Chair in Health Technology & Commercialization at University of Toronto's Institute of Biomedical Engineering and University Health Networks

Director, Health Innovation Hub

Dr. Christine Allen

Professor, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto

Co-founder and CEO, Intrepid Labs