UBC Clinical Professor of Paediatrics Dr. Robert Peterson has been appointed Executive Director, Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network (DSEN), effective Jan. 4, 2010.
DSEN will respond to decision-makers’ drug safety and effectiveness information needs and increase capacity within Canada to undertake high-quality research in this area. New evidence generated via the Network will inform decision-making about the regulation, public reimbursement, and safe and optimal prescribing and use of drugs within the Canadian health care system.
Peterson has been Director of the Section of Paediatric Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Colorado, Professor of Paediatrics and Pharmacology and Chairman of the Dept. of Paediatrics at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine, and Director of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute.
He has also served as the Director General of the Therapeutic Products Directorate at Health Canada from 2000 to 2005, before returning to UBC as Clinical Professor of Paediatrics and Senior Associate Clinician Scientist at the Child and Family Research Institute at BC Children’s Hospital. He was appointed to the Canadian Expert Drug Advisory Committee in 2005 and assumed the role of Chair in 2008.
Peterson is also a member of the World Health Organization’s Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Evaluation, and Chairman of the Regulations Advisory Board of the Centre for Medicines Research, International Institute for Regulatory Science.
