Watchdog: Conflicted Thiel-Protégé Jim O’Neill Expected to Be Named Acting CDC Director

Washington D.C. – Pseudo-science advocate, anti-vax Measles outbreak apologist and conflicted Trump HHS Director Robert Kennedy Jr. is reportedly expected to name Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O’Neill as Acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A review from government watchdog Accountable.US finds O’Neill would bring major conflicts of interest to the role as a former associate of vulture capitalist Peter Thiel. O’Neill was a managing director at Mithril Capital, Thiel’s venture capital firm, and the former CEO of the Thiel Foundation, with ties to numerous health and medical companies with business interests before the HHS.

 “If made acting Director of the Trump CDC, Jim O’Neill would be in a prime position to ensure favorable outcomes for several medical industry startups he’s been financially linked to that have direct business before HHS and the CDC,” said Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk. “How can American patients be sure that proper vetting of these companies would take place on O’Neill’s watch and that public health will be a higher priority over the profits of his former clients? They can’t. But under Trump-RFK Jr. leadership, Americans are expected to swallow bitter pills that compromise their health in service to the administration’s “Make America Sick Again” agenda, so long as well-connected Trump friendly special interests can make a quick buck.” 

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT JIM O’NEILL: 

•  From 2023-2025, O’Neill was a director and advisor at ADvantage Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company preparing for clinical trials in the U.S. from which he received six-figure compensation in 2024-2025. O’Neill was also a director of Klothea Bio, a development-stage subsidiary of ADvantage. 

• From 2022-2025, O’Neill was a paid “global health advisor” for Rational Vaccines, a herpes vaccine research and development company that has sought and received NIH grant funding and launched multiple clinical trials.

• From 2024-2025, O’Neill was a paid advisor for Arcadia Medicine, a mental health therapeutics startup with a drug in the preclinical stage as of April 2025.

• From 2019-2021, O’Neill was a board observer of Oisín Biotechnologies, a company in preclinical stages for a gene therapy treatment as of September 2024. 

O’Neill also co-founded Breakout Labs, a science seed funding nonprofit that was spun out into Breakout Ventures, a venture capital firm with several medical industry startups in its portfolio, including:

• Cytovale, a medical device startup that, as of April 2025, had received grant funding from the NIH andBARDA and hadproducts dependent on FDA approval.
• Immusoft, a medical startup that was awarded millions in NIH funding between 2012-2020 and was undergoing clinical trials in the U.S. as of 2024.

• ShiraTronics, a clinical-stage migraine therapy company that builds medical devices dependent on FDA approval.

• STRM.BIO, a gene therapy startup that was awarded millions in NIH funding in 2022-2023.

•  On his ethics agreement, O’Neill promised to divest from ADvantage Therapeutics and abstain from participating in matters directly involving ADvantage, Klothea Bio, Rational Vaccines, and Arcadia Medicine. However, he did not promise to abstain from decisions involving these companies for the duration of his term, or to abstain from doing business with them after departing HHS.  To date, O’Neill has yet to confirm he has divested from any of these interests, according to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics database.

• In a 2014 speech, O’Neill advocated for radically altering the FDA’s drug approval rules to allow Americans to use drugs allegedly proven “safe” to use drugs “at their own risk” before they have been proven effective. Health experts have expressed alarm at O’Neill’s statements, which they argued demonstrate a lack of knowledge about how the FDA’s review process, noting that “every drug has risks” the FDA must weigh against the potential benefits of effective treatment.
  

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