Ameen Mirjan had only been working as an oncology pharmacist at Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital for a few weeks in 2020 when he recognized an opportunity.
With fast-paced progress in the oncology world making it challenging for healthcare professionals to stay current with the latest advances, there was a gap for technology to fill.
The 2010 electrical engineering grad, who subsequently earned a post-graduate Doctor of Pharmacy degree, set to designing and coding a web app.
His aim was to provide healthcare professionals with tailored clinical information, based on their role within their teams.
His vision? To see the digital tool implemented in oncology centers across Canada, to help standardize the quality of care for cancer patients.
That led Mirjan to found Capxule Inc., a consulting and technology integration firm that is targeting technology gaps in the healthcare sector.
His experience creating the app has also shifted his career focus. He has recently taken a position with Hoffmann La Roche, a multinational biopharmaceutical and diagnostic company investing in artificial intelligence and technology utilization to improve the quality of Canada’s healthcare sector.
Part of his new role is to pinpoint challenges within the oncology field and design tailored solutions.
“I want to use both my clinical and digital backgrounds to identify and solve today’s biggest healthcare system gaps,” he says.
It’s a lofty goal and he admits that the journey so far has featured failures as well as successes.
“In a world filled with people highlighting their accomplishments on social media, I think it is important to be honest about the fact that accomplishing a goal often requires a lot of failures before you reach the finish line,” he says.
After earning his engineering degree at McMaster, Mirjan completed a pharmacy degree at the University of Queensland in Australia. Later, as part of his doctoral work, he conducted oncology research at the Université Paris Descartes in France.
Exposure to world-leading academic and healthcare institutions has helped fuel his passion for technology integration, he says.
“My goal is to contribute to elevating the quality of care of the Canadian healthcare sector to a level that parallels top international healthcare systems,” he says.
His advice to students?
“Seize the opportunity to learn from every role you assume throughout your career, for every piece of information you learn is a small step forward to leaving a meaningful impact.”
