Peter Jüni

Peter Jüni is a general internist and epidemiologist, and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Clinical Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases. He is the Scientific Director of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, and sits on the Drugs & Biologics Clinical Practice Guidelines Working Group.¹⁾

He has received funding from a variety of pharmaceutical companies including Abbott Vascular, Amgen, Appili Therapeutics, AstraZeneca, AVA Pharmaceuticals, Biosensors International, Biotronik, Eli Lilly, Fresenius, The Medicines Company and Terumo.²⁾

Jüni is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bern in Switzerland, completed his training in internal medicine at various hospitals in Switzerland, and was a Research Fellow at the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Bristol, UK.

Jüni received a Young Investigator Operating Grant from the Arthritis Society for a study called “Personalization of osteoarthritis care using large-scale randomized evidence: network meta-analysis and methodological development”.³⁾

Jüni received a grant through the John R. Evans Leaders Fund for participation in “The CardioLink Research Platform: Innovations in Cardiovascular Surgery & Cardiometabolic Care”.⁴⁾

He also received a SPOR Innovative Clinical Trial Multi-Year Grant called “Evaluating Innovative Health Care Solutions to Improve Outcomes for Persons with Type 1 Diabetes using a Novel Electronic Data Repository Reducing Diabetic Foot Complications through a Multidisciplinary Chiropodist Based Intervention”.

Jüni holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Clinical Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), which has provided him funding.

He received a grant through Unity Health Toronto titled “TRICS IV - Restrictive versus Liberal Transfusion in Younger Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery” from the CIHR.⁵⁾ The grant paid $1,675,350.00 for a 3-year period.⁶⁾

Jüni is also a co-applicant through the University Health Network on a grant called “Semaglutide to Reduce Myocardial Injury in PATIents With COVID-19 (SEMPATICO)” from the CIHR under an operating grant called “COVID-19 Rapid Research Funding Opportunity - Therapeutics”.⁷⁾ The study is exploring the use of a drug called semaglutide (sold under the brand name Ozempic among others), developed by Novo Nordisk.⁸⁾ The grant awards $664,145.00 over a 1-year period.⁹⁾

A similar grant was awarded to Jüni, also through Unity Health Toronto, for a study called “COVID-19 Ring-based Prevention trial with lopinavir-ritonavir (CORIPREV-LR)”.¹⁰⁾ Lopinavir and ritonavir are used together as a treatment for HIV/AIDS.¹¹⁾ CIHR awarded $817,960.00 to the institution over a 1-year period.¹²⁾ The study was also funded by the St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation, as well as through in-kind support from AbbVie and the CIHR Centre for REACH 3.0. The pair of drugs is marketed by AbbVie as Keltra.¹³⁾

He and Unity Health Toronto also received a grant from the CIHR for “The Functional Improvement Trajectories After Surgery (FIT After Surgery) Study: A Multicentre Prospective Cohort Study to Evaluate the Incidence, Trajectories, Risk Factors, Impact and Healthcare Costs”. The institution received $1,388,474.00 over a 39-month period.¹⁴⁾

Further, he received a grant totalling $482,936.00 for 2020-2022 from the CIHR for a project called “PRECEDE: Preconception risk factors and Cardiometabolic health in Early childhood”.¹⁵⁾ The team for the study is based at SickKids.

Jüni received a grant from the Government of Canada through CIHR-SPOR for a study called REMAP-CAP, an international platform trial exploring COVID-19 and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP).¹⁶⁾

Jüni has received funding through the CIHR for “Nutrition Recommendation Intervention trials in children's healthcare” under TARGetKids!.¹⁷⁾

Jüni is a Network Science Advisor on the Executive Leadership team of CanCOVID, where he has received funding as a co-principal investigator.¹⁸⁾

Jüni was Editor of two Cochrane Review Groups, and contributed to the Cochrane Risk of bias tools for randomized and non-randomized studies.

Jüni is a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology, where he has had leading roles in several major cardiovascular trials, including SIRTAX, LEADERS, FAME 2 and MATRIX, served as a member of several task forces of the European Society of Cardiology and co-authored the European guidelines on myocardial revascularization and on the management of acute myocardial infarction.

Jüni is the Scientific Director of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table since July 2020, and sits on the Drugs & Biologics Clinical Practice Guidelines Working Group.¹⁹⁾

Jüni was Co-Applicant on a grant for a Unity Health Toronto study called “Careful Ventilation in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (COVID-19) (CAVIARDS)”, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the University of Toronto.^{20) 21)}

Jüni is the former Director of the Applied Health Research Centre (AHRC) at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at St. Michael’s Hospital under Unity Health Toronto.²²⁾

Prior to joining St. Michael’s Hospital, Peter was the Director of the Institute of Primary Health Care and Professor of Primary Care and Clinical Epidemiology at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bern in Switzerland. He held previous appointments as Director of the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern and Founding Director of CTU Bern, the University’s clinical trials unit.

Jüni is a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology in the Department of Medicine and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.

He received funding from U of T as a Co-Applicant for a study called “Prone positioning for patients on general medical wards with COVID19: A multicenter pragmatic randomized trial.”²³⁾

He is also a Co-Primary Investigator in a study called “Control of COVID-19 outbreaks in long term care” funded by a grant from U of T.

Jüni serves as an unpaid member of the steering group or executive committee of trials funded by Abbott Vascular and St. Jude Medical, which was acquired by Abbott Laboratories in January 2017.^{24) 25) 26)}

Jüni is paid honoraria (to his institution) for participation in advisory boards and/or consulting from Amgen, as well as being reimbursed travel/accommodation/meeting expenses.

Jüni is Co-Primary Investigator for a study investigating the use of Favipiravir for COVID-19 in long-term care settings.^{27) 28)} He was funded by Appili Therapeutics through the Applied Health Research Centre within Unity Health Toronto.²⁹⁾

Jüni serves as an unpaid member of a steering group or executive committee of trials funded by AstraZeneca.³⁰⁾

Jüni is paid honoraria (to his institution) for participation in advisory boards and/or consulting from honoraria to the institution for participation in advisory boards and/or consulting from AVA Pharmaceuticals.

Jüni serves as an unpaid member of a steering group or executive committee of trials funded by Biosensors International.

Jüni serves as an unpaid member of a steering group or executive committee of trials funded by Biotronik.

Jüni serves as an unpaid member of a steering group or executive committee of trials funded by Eli Lilly.

Jüni is paid honoraria (to his institution) for participation in advisory boards and/or consulting from honoraria to the institution for participation in advisory boards and/or consulting from Fresenius, as well as being reimbursed travel/accomodation/meeting expenses.

Jüni serves as an unpaid member of a steering group or executive committee of trials funded by The Medicines Company.

Jüni serves as an unpaid member of the steering group or executive committee of trials funded by Terumo.

“Coagulopathy of hospitalised COVID-19: A Pragmatic Randomised Controlled Trial of Therapeutic Anticoagulation versus Standard Care as a Rapid Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic (RAPID COVID COAG – RAPID Trial): A structured summary of a study protocol for a randomised controlled trial”^{31) 32)}

Funded by Defense Research Development Canada under the Department of National Defense, St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation, St. Joseph’s Health Centre Foundation, and the International Network of Venous Thromboembolism Clinical Research Networks (INVENT) Kickstarter Award.

“Cash transfer during the COVID-19 pandemic: a multicentre, randomised controlled trial”

Conclusions: “A single cash transfer did not reduce the COVID-19 symptoms or improve the ability to afford necessities. Further studies are needed to determine whether some groups may benefit from financial supports and to determine if a higher level of support is beneficial.”³³⁾

“Risk-stratification of febrile African children at risk of sepsis using sTREM-1 as basis for a rapid triage test”

Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Intellectual Ventures, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Canada Research Chair Program (CRCP), and donations from Kim Kertland and the Tesari Foundation.³⁴⁾

“Age and Sex Specific Prevalence of Clinical and Screen-Detected Atrial Fibrillation in Hospitalized Patients”

Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Heart Foundation.³⁵⁾

Jüni was a co-investigator on a study titled “From idea to reality: COVID-19 Vaccination for Children and Youth” taking place from June 1, 2021 to May 31, 2022. It was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research through an “Emerging COVID-19 Research Gaps and Priorities - Vaccines” operating grant.³⁶⁾ The intended outcome of the study is to examine vaccine safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines in children and youth, to provide confidence to parents considering vaccinating their children, and increase vaccine uptake.³⁷⁾

• December 22, 2021: Jüni stated that Ontario's testing system is usually able to capture 40% of cases, but Omicron caused them to max out at 30% - and that international cooperation is key in understanding the virus.³⁸⁾

• December 12, 2021: Jüni encouraged Ontarians to get a “booster dose” of a COVID-19 vaccine product due to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. “If you're fully vaccinated - two doses, this doesn't protect you anymore against infection, that's a reality. But it continues to prevent serious disease, that's most likely the case based on everything we know.” He also stated that he would bet on the definition of “fully vaccinated” being changed shortly, “because to be honest if you have two doses and go into a restaurant you're able to infect the entire restaurant.”³⁹⁾

Jüni was paid to speak on the topic of “clinical research” at Interaction 19 Conference, an event held in early February 2019 in Seattle, Washington and sponsored by Adobe, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Cisco, Netflix, Oracle, Salesforce, Spotify, Squarespace, Twitter, Verizon, Volvo and Westin, among others.^{40) 41)}