People
The pCPA announces its new CEO
January 29, 2025
TORONTO – The pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance’s (pCPA) board of directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Mauro Chies (pictured) as chief executive officer (CEO), effective February 10, 2025. Mauro brings to the position more than 20 years of leadership experience in the healthcare sector. He is the former CEO of Canada’s largest single health authority, Alberta Health Services, and has previously served as senior executive overseeing broad portfolios that included pharmaceuticals and infection prevention and control.
Mauro is recognized for his transformational leadership, stakeholder relations skills and people-centric approach.
“The pCPA is a true pan-Canadian success story. I am honoured and excited to join a diverse team of experts who not only enable the right drug options to be offered to patients across Canada but also create value for our health system,” Mauro said. “I look forward to engaging with stakeholders in Canada and abroad. Together, we will continue to build on the pCPA’s many successes for a brighter future.”
The pCPA is a rare collaboration of all provincial, territorial and federal governments coming together to improve health outcomes across jurisdictions. Mauro joins the organization at an exciting time, as the pCPA’s recent revitalization allows for greater responsiveness to our rapidly evolving landscape. The organization has an ambitious and critical mandate, and Mauro will provide the leadership required to both innovate and help preserve a sustainable publicly funded health system.
In addition to his deep understanding of the health system, Mauro brings extensive experience in not-for-profit governance and system planning. He holds a Master of Business Administration and an honorary Bachelor of Technology.
Through collective negotiations, the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance has realized overall savings (as of April 2024) of $3.72 billion annually for brand name drugs and $914 million annually for generic drugs totaling $4.63 billion in annualized savings.
The pCPA was originally established as the pan-Canadian Pricing Alliance in August 2010. It was created by the premiers of Canada though the Council of the Federation’s Health Care Innovation Working Group. The aim was to achieve greater value for publicly funded drug programs and patients through the combined negotiating power of participating jurisdictions.
In 2015, the alliance was formalized with the new name pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, a mandate and objectives were developed, a governance structure was implemented, and an office was created to provide support to the member jurisdictions. Also, in 2015, Québec joined the alliance and in 2016, the federal drug plans joined. At that time, Ontario agreed to host the pCPA Office and as such the Office was subject to Ontario rules and regulations. The pCPA Office was then staffed by employees of the Government of Ontario.
An organizational review conducted in 2019 to assess pCPA’s current and future roles recognized the importance of this rare collaboration of provincial, territorial and federal governments, which has enabled the sharing of resources and expertise to achieve its objectives. It also recommended that the pCPA become a standalone organization to better respond to the demands of the rapidly evolving pharmaceutical landscape. The transition to a standalone organization as well as other changes recommended by the organizational review were anchored in the pCPA’s 2022–24 strategic plan.
As a result of these collective efforts, the standalone pCPA organization was established in late 2022, and the transition was completed in 2023. The new organization builds on the important work accomplished by the dedicated team of pCPA staff. The new organizational structure, along with an increase in internal capacity, will allow the pCPA to lead and support more product negotiations on behalf of member jurisdictions in the years ahead.
pCPA member jurisdictions include public drug plan participation from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland & Labrador, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB), Correctional Services of Canada (CSC), Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) and Department of National Defence (DND).