Jon Fintzi

Associate Director, Statistical Methodology & Innovation
Bristol Myers Squibb

I am a biostatistician who develops novel statistical methods and provides strategic statistical leadership for clinical development programs. I guide product teams on innovative study designs — including adaptive and Bayesian approaches — and use modeling and simulation to quantify the benefit, risk, and uncertainty of emerging product profiles and inform program-level decisions. My methodological work spans multistate and survival models, Bayesian computation, estimands, and stochastic processes, with open-source software implementations in R, Julia, and C++. I lead cross-functional collaborations across therapeutic areas including vaccines, immunotherapy, neuroscience, and oncology.

Previously, I spent six years at the NIAID Biostatistics Research Branch, where I served as lead statistician on clinical trials for COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines, malaria transmission-blocking vaccines, and allergic diseases — collaborating with regulatory agencies, CROs, and external investigators, and serving as executive secretary of a data safety monitoring board.

GitHub ORCID Google Scholar

Research Interests

Innovative Study Design

Design consultation for adaptive, Bayesian, and platform trials across development phases. Promoting fit-for-purpose designs that balance speed, quality, and scientific rigor for product strategy.

Modeling & Simulation

Simulation-based approaches for sample size estimation, interim analysis design, trial operating characteristics, and disease progression modeling to inform and optimize clinical development plans.

Benefit-Risk Quantification

Quantifying the benefit, risk, value, and uncertainty of emerging product profiles using multistate models and simulation to support program-level decision-making and probability of technical success.

Vaccines & Immunotherapy

Statistical strategies for vaccine trials including immune correlates analysis, durability assessment, and transmission-blocking vaccine efficacy — with deep experience across COVID-19, malaria, and immunological conditions.

Estimands & Causal Inference

Frameworks for defining treatment effects under the ICH E9(R1) estimand framework, including SMART designs for handling intercurrent events. Cross-industry working group contributor.

Methods Development & Software

Novel statistical methodology with open-source implementations in R, Julia, and C++. Award-winning publications in Biostatistics, Biometrics, and Statistics in Medicine. National recognition as a statistical technical expert.

Open-Source Software

MultistateModels.jl

Julia

Simulation and inference for multistate models fit to panel data. Used for disease progression modeling, benefit-risk quantification, and clinical trial design optimization via simulation.

★ 6

stemr

Bayesian inference for stochastic compartmental models via the linear noise approximation. Applied to vaccine trial design, outbreak forecasting, and transmission dynamics estimation.

★ 9

BDAepimodel

Tractable fitting of stochastic epidemic models via Bayesian data augmentation. Implements MCMC algorithms for SIR-type models with exact likelihood computation.

★ 5

ECctmc

C++

Simulation of sample paths for endpoint-conditioned continuous time Markov chains. Efficient C++ implementation via Rcpp.

★ 2

Publications

Assessing treatment efficacy for interval-censored endpoints using multistate semi-Markov models fit to multiple data streams

Morsomme R, Liang CJ, Mateja A, Follmann DA, O'Brien MP, Wang C, & Fintzi J

Biostatistics, 2025 · 🏆 ASA Lifetime Data Science Best Paper Award

A test-negative design for immune correlates approximates a traditional exposure proximal design but requires far fewer blood samples

Follmann D, Dang L, Chu E, Fintzi J, Janes H, Gilbert PB, …, & El Sahly HM

The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2025

A vaccine to block Plasmodium falciparum transmission

Healy SA, Sagara I, Assadou MH, …, Fintzi J, …, & Duffy PE

NEJM Evidence, 2025

The risk of NTM pulmonary infection associated with trace metal exposure from public distribution system water in the United States

Lipner EM, Powell C, Nelson S, Fintzi J, French JP, Mercaldo RA, …, & Prevots DR

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, 2025

Neutralizing antibody immune correlates for a recombinant protein vaccine in the COVAIL trial

Fong Y, Dang L, Zhang B, Fintzi J, Chen S, Wang J, et al.

Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2025

Neutralizing antibody immune correlates in COVAIL trial recipients of an mRNA second COVID-19 vaccine boost

Zhang B, Fong Y, Dang L, Fintzi J, Chen S, et al.

Nature Communications, 2025

Omicron COVID-19 immune correlates analysis of a third dose of mRNA-1273 in the COVE trial

Zhang B, Fong Y, Fintzi J, et al.

Nature Communications, 2024

Semiparametric modeling of SARS-CoV-2 transmission using tests, cases, deaths, and seroprevalence data

Bayer D, Goldstein IH, Fintzi J, Lumbard K, Ricotta E, Warner S, et al.

The Annals of Applied Statistics, 2024

Web-based survey investigating cardiovascular complications in hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome after COVID-19 infection and vaccination

Guerrerio AL, Mateja A, MacCarrick G, Fintzi J, Brittain E, Frischmeyer-Guerrerio PA, Dietz HC

PLoS ONE, 2024

Cardiovascular complications in vascular connective tissue disorders after COVID-19 infection and vaccination

Guerrerio AL, Mateja A, MacCarrick G, Fintzi J, Brittain E, Frischmeyer-Guerrerio PA, Dietz HC

PLoS ONE, 2024

Malaria transmission-blocking vaccines Pfs230D1-EPA and Pfs25-EPA in alhydrogel in healthy Malian adults: a phase 1, randomised, controlled trial

Sagara I, Healy SA, Assadou MH, …, Fintzi J, et al.

The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2023

Examining protective effects of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies after vaccination or monoclonal antibody administration

Follmann D, O'Brien MP, Fintzi J, Fay MP, Montefiori D, Mateja A, et al.

Nature Communications, 2023

Impact of surge strain and pandemic progression on prognostication by an established COVID-19–specific severity score

Yek C, Wang J, Fintzi J, Mancera AG, Keller MB, Warner S, Kadri SS

Critical Care Explorations, 2023

A linear noise approximation for stochastic epidemic models fit to partially observed incidence counts

Fintzi J, Wakefield J, & Minin VN

Biometrics, 2022 · 🏆 Breslow Young Investigator Award, ASA, 2020

Unravelling the treatment effect of baricitinib on clinical progression and resource utilization in hospitalized COVID-19 patients: secondary analysis of ACTT-2

Fintzi J, Bonnett T, Tebas P, Marconi VC, Levine CB, El Sahly HM, et al.

Open Forum Infectious Diseases, 2022

Discovering disease-causing pathogens in resource-scarce Southeast Asia using a global metagenomic pathogen monitoring system

Bohl JA, Lay S, Chea S, Ahyong V, Parker DM, Gallagher S, Fintzi J, et al.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022

Assessing vaccine durability in randomized trials following placebo crossover

Fintzi J & Follmann D

Statistics in Medicine, 2021

Deconstructing the treatment effect of remdesivir in the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial-1: implications for critical care resource utilization

Fintzi J, Bonnett T, Sweeney DA, Huprikar NA, Ganesan A, et al.

Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2021

A deferred-vaccination design to assess durability of COVID-19 vaccine effect after the placebo group is vaccinated

Follmann D, Fintzi J, Fay MP, Janes HE, Baden LR, et al.

Annals of Internal Medicine, 2021

Concordance of immunological events between intrarectal and intravenous SHIV AD8-EO infection when assessed by Fiebig-equivalent staging

Dias J, Fabozzi G, March K, …, Fintzi J, et al.

The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2021

Contributions of lipopolysaccharide and the type IVB secretion system to Coxiella burnetii vaccine efficacy and reactogenicity

Long CM, Beare PA, Cockrell DC, Fintzi J, Tesfamariam M, Shaia CI, Heinzen RA

NPJ Vaccines, 2021

Immune correlates of protection by mRNA-1273 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 in nonhuman primates

Corbett KS, Nason MC, Flach B, Gagne M, O'Connell S, et al.

Science, 2021

An immune-based biomarker signature is associated with mortality in COVID-19 patients

Abers MS, Delmonte OM, Ricotta EE, Fintzi J, Fink DL, et al.

JCI Insight, 2021

Asthma is associated with increased risk of intubation but not hospitalization or death in coronavirus disease 2019

Rosenthal JA, Awan SF, Fintzi J, Keswani A, Ein D

Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, 2021

Comparison of the transmission efficiency and plague progression dynamics associated with two mechanisms by which fleas transmit Yersinia pestis

Bosio CF, Jarrett CO, Scott DP, Fintzi J, Hinnebusch BJ

PLoS Pathogens, 2020

Mycobacterial testing trends, United States, 2009–2015

Dean SG, Ricotta EE, Fintzi J, Lai YL, Kadri SS, Olivier KN, Zelazny A, Prevots DR

Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2020

Efficient data augmentation for fitting stochastic epidemic models to prevalence data

Fintzi J, Cui X, Wakefield J, & Minin VN

Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 2017

Ambient air quality measurements from a continuously moving mobile platform: estimation of area-wide, fuel-based, mobile source emission factors using absolute principal component scores

Larson T, Gould T, Riley EA, Austin E, Fintzi J, Sheppard L, Yost M, Simpson C

Atmospheric Environment, 2017

Multi-pollutant mobile platform measurements of air pollutants adjacent to a major roadway

Riley EA, Banks L, Fintzi J, Gould TR, Hartin K, Schaal L, Davey M, Sheppard L, Larson T, Yost MG, Simpson CD

Atmospheric Environment, 2014

Discussions

Discussion of "Dynamic Bayesian influenza forecasting in the United States with hierarchical discrepancy"

Minin VN, Fintzi J, Lomeli LJM, Wakefield J

Bayesian Analysis, 2019

Awards

Best Paper Award — ASA Lifetime Data Science Section, Joint Statistical Meetings, 2025. For Morsomme et al. (2025), Biostatistics.
NIH Director's Award — Advancing COVID-19 Vaccines: ACTIV and HHS Collaborations, 2021.
Breslow Young Investigator Award — ASA Statistics in Epidemiology Section, Joint Statistical Meetings, 2020. For Fintzi, Wakefield, & Minin (2022), Biometrics.
Best Oral Presentation — 28th International Biometric Conference, 2016. For Fintzi et al. (2017), JCGS.

Contact

fintzij@gmail.com
github.com/fintzij
ORCID: 0000-0002-6361-702X