Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son-in-law is advising his campaign, specifically on the Chinese coronavirus crisis, while investing in companies presenting solutions to the coronavirus with his venture capital firm.
Biden’s daughter, Ashley, married Philadelphia head and neck doctor Howard Krein in 2012. Krein, while advising Biden on the coronavirus for his campaign, is investing in coronavirus-response companies as the chief medical officer at StartUp Health.
Politico reports:
In March, as Covid-19 began spreading in the United States, the investment firm, StartUp Health, unveiled a new coronavirus initiative soliciting pitches from entrepreneurs with products that addressed the outbreak. [Emphasis added]
The next month, reports in Bloomberg and the New York Times listed Krein among those participating in daily calls to brief Biden on health policy during the pandemic, while StartUp Health announced its intention to invest $1 million across 10 startups with coronavirus applications within 30 days. [Emphasis added]
…
The influence concerns posed by the firm are compounded by its foreign ties. One StartUp Health fund raised $31 million from investors, including the Swiss drugmaker Novartis and the Chinese insurer Ping An, in 2018. The firm’s website also lists the Chinese technology conglomerate Tencent as a “co-investor” in its cancer moonshot initiative. A spokesperson for Tencent, Meredith Julian, declined to comment. [Emphasis added]
Krein’s StartUp Health came from OrganizedWisdom, which was founded by Krein’s brother, Steven. The company, like StartUp Health, had Krein as its chief medical officer.
StartUp health focuses largely on “moonshot” investments in the healthcare industry that had close ties to the Obama administration when Biden served as vice president. For instance, before StartUp Health launched, Steven Krein held a meeting with President Obama and Biden. Krein is said to have set up the meeting between his brother, Obama, and Biden.
When the Obama administration, and particularly Biden, started the Cancer Moonshot project — a “new national effort to end cancer as we know it,” according to Biden’s website at the time — Krein’s StartUp Health was closely involved.
Krein traveled with Biden to the University of Pennsylvania, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the Vatican to promote the Cancer Moonshot project. At StartUp Health, Krein was described as an adviser to the White House on the Cancer Moonshot project.
Towards the end of the Obama administration, Biden actually spoke at StartUp Health’s annual event in San Francisco, California.
The Biden Cancer Initiative, an arm of the Cancer Moonshot project, was shut down by the Bidens in July 2019 after he left office and only a few months after he announced his run for president.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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