Julia Spoendlin is a pharmacoepidemiologist at the Basel Pharmacoepidemiology Unit (BPU) of the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel.

She is a pharmacist by training and completed her PhD at the BPU as well as a training (FPH) in clinical pharmacy at the Hospital Pharmacy of the University Hospital Basel in 2013. Thereafter she joined the BPU as a postdoctoral researcher for two years.

In spring 2016, she joined the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard Medical School in Boston (USA) for a postdoctoral fellowship. During this stay she received an early postdoc mobility fellowship and later also an advanced postdoc mobility fellowship by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The focus of her research was on the use of rigorous pharmacoepidemiological study design and observational databases (mainly the United States Renal Data System and commercial US claims databases) to answer clinical questions with regard to the comparative effectiveness and safety of drugs used in patients with End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) and in women with chronic kidney disease during pregnancy. She also engaged in projects on the use of observational research within the scope of regulatory aspects of drugs with early market access among specific populations of high medical need. During her stay in Boston, she also completed a Master in Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

In July 2018, she returned to the BPU where she is currently working as a pharmacoepidemiologist. She is conducting different research projects using a large UK-based primary care database as well as a Swiss health care claims database. Her main research focus is on drug use and safety during pregnancy and on patients with chronic kidney disease. She supervises PhD and MSc candidates and teaches epidemiology at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Basel.