Team

Our team

Our founders combine complementary strengths in evidence synthesis, comparative effectiveness and evidence strategy, working with an expanding team of experienced specialists.

Founders

Heather Burnett, MSc

Co-Founder & Principal Consultant

Heather Burnett has more than 15 years of experience in health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), supporting the development of early- and late-stage HEOR strategies and evidence packages required by drug manufacturers for health technology assessment (HTA) submissions. She specializes in evidence synthesis, including systematic and targeted literature reviews of both quantitative and qualitative evidence, meta-analysis, network meta-analysis, population-adjusted indirect comparisons, and trial-level surrogate endpoint analyses. She has led multi-workstream programs spanning value dossiers, literature reviews, indirect treatment comparisons (ITCs) and economic models. Her research has supported regulatory submissions and HTA evaluations, and she has authored more than 60 publications. Her therapeutic area experience spans hematology, immune-mediated, respiratory, cardiovascular and infectious diseases, and vaccines. Her recent work focuses on comparative effectiveness evidence strategy and planning, including for EU Joint Clinical Assessments (JCA), and on how artificial intelligence can surface insights earlier in the evidence synthesis workflow. She holds an MSc in Health Policy, Management and Evaluation from the University of Toronto, and an MSc in Molecular and Cellular Biology and a BSc from the University of Guelph.

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Shannon Cope, MSc

Co-Founder & Principal Consultant

Shannon Cope has nearly 20 years of experience in health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) and is a leader in evidence generation and synthesis for the comparative effectiveness of new treatments required for regulatory and health technology assessment (HTA) decisions. She specializes in advanced comparative effectiveness methods, including network meta-analysis, population-adjusted and external control analyses, treatment-switching adjustment, survival extrapolation, and trial- and patient-level surrogacy. Her work focuses on complex evidence settings, particularly in oncology, where indirect comparisons often require data integration for time-to-event outcomes. She also advises clients on estimands, trial design and evidence strategy. She has led analyses supporting regulatory submissions, HTA evaluations, and Joint Clinical Assessments (JCA) in Europe. Her structured expert elicitation methods for long-term survival extrapolation are highlighted in NICE Decision Support Unit Technical Support Document 26 (2025). She has authored over 115 publications, including more than 45 network meta-analyses and meta-regressions and more than 20 population-adjusted indirect comparisons. Her recent work includes the application of artificial intelligence to evidence synthesis workflows. She holds an MSc in Health Administration from the University of Toronto and a BSc in Health Sciences from McMaster University.

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Sarah Goring, MSc

Co-Founder & Principal Consultant

Sarah Goring has nearly 20 years of experience in health economics and outcomes research (HEOR). She provides scientific and methodological leadership in evidence synthesis, including systematic literature reviews, meta-analysis, network meta-analysis (including Bayesian and multilevel network meta-regression approaches), population-adjusted indirect comparisons, and surrogate endpoint analyses. Her methods work addresses complex evidence challenges, often involving time-to-event outcomes, and has supported successful health technology assessment (HTA) submissions worldwide. She currently serves as a senior methodologist for Canada’s Drug Agency (CDA-AMC), reviewing the trial design and indirect treatment comparisons in sponsors’ drug reimbursement submissions. Her experience also extends to real-world evidence and pharmacoepidemiology, including burden-of-illness studies, chart reviews and rare-disease prevalence estimation. She has worked extensively in oncology, as well as in diabetes, respiratory disease, transplantation and rare diseases. She has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations, and has taught network meta-analysis courses, including at ISPOR. Her recent work includes using large language models to support literature reviews, incorporating the possibility of cure into network meta-analyses, and comparing time-to-event outcomes across trials with mismatched time zero. She holds an MSc in Health Care and Epidemiology from the University of British Columbia and a BSc in Mathematics (minor in Biology) from the University of Victoria.

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Team

Dylan Maciel, MSc

Senior Statistician

Dylan Maciel is a senior statistician specializing in advanced evidence synthesis and comparative effectiveness research for health technology assessment (HTA) and healthcare decision-making. He has more than five years of experience in health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), focused on the development and application of advanced statistical methods for indirect treatment comparisons and evidence synthesis. He has expertise in network meta-analysis, multilevel network meta-regression (ML-NMR), population-adjusted indirect comparisons, survival and time-to-event analyses, surrogacy analyses, and Bayesian statistical methods. His methodological research has included the application of ML-NMR to time-to-event outcomes, one-step parametric network meta-analysis approaches that accommodate time-varying treatment effects, Bayesian hierarchical approaches for population-adjusted indirect comparisons, and patient-level surrogacy models for predicting long-term survival outcomes. He has contributed to peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations across oncology and other therapeutic areas. He holds an MSc in Statistics from Simon Fraser University and an undergraduate degree in Physics.

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Tell us about your evidence question. Based in Canada, working globally.

founders@unpuzzleheor.ca