vaccine effort, CEO Hari Prasad sought help from one of its earliest investors -- a company with a special government connection.
"Howard Krein is playing with fire," said Meredith McGehee, the executive director of Issue One, a nonpartisan ethics watchdog group. "If he gets too close to that flame -- if he is trying to either cash in on his relationship with the president, or he is trying to influence policy -- the flame is going to get him. And it is not worth it to him or to Biden."
Now, with Biden in office, Krein's involvement with StartUp Health has prompted more tough questions, ethicists and tech industry experts told ABC News.
"We're going to run this like the Obama-Biden administration," he told People Magazine last week. "No one in our family and extended family is going to be involved in any government undertaking or foreign policy."StartUp Health has invested nearly $2 billion over the past decade, which it has poured into more than 350 startups focused on addressing a long list of challenges in health care, ranging from nutrition and fitness to opioid addiction.
Biden's public praise of both the company and Krein only escalated when he left the vice presidency. "I love him like he's my own," Biden said of Krein in 2018. Twice Biden appeared as a featured speaker at events hosted by StartUp Health that were intended to entice venture capitalists to invest in the company, touting his son-in-law's position as an executive at the firm.
Weeks after his March podcast appearance -- during which Krein also announced that the pandemic response would become the company's twelfth "moonshot" initiative -- Krein's name surfaced as one of a small group of health experts helping then-candidate Biden shape his own pandemic response platform.
Yahoo Oh look 👀 QAnon is awake!
I thought this guy made such a big deal about nepotism, prior to his becoming President
Ship has sailed on that one. The Biden’s have been grifting for years.
And yet, no questions about Javanka, Jr. and Eric breaking nepotism laws and bleeding taxpayers dry!!
con·flict of in·ter·est
Could? Those questions have been out there for a while.