Former White House Coronavirus Task Force adviser Deborah Birx named CEO of pharmaceutical company, has been active in private sector since leaving government positions



Deborah Birx – the former White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator under former President Donald Trump – has been named as the CEO of a pharmaceutical company.

In a July 11 press release, Armata Pharmaceuticals announced that Birx, 67, would be the new Chief Executive Officer of the biotechnology company.

Robin C. Kramer, Chair of Armata's Board of Directors, said, "On behalf of the Armata Board and leadership, I would like to welcome Dr. Birx to the team. As we continue to work to introduce novel phage therapeutics to combat serious bacterial infections, Deborah's expertise in immunology and infectious diseases together with her proven leadership skills will serve us well. I look forward to her contributions as CEO and a member of our Board."

Birx said of her new CEO position, "I am thrilled to join Armata at this pivotal time in the Company's development. I'm impressed with the scientific platform's quality and the team's commitment to introducing innovative treatment options for patients suffering from serious bacterial infections. I am excited about the recent advances and see multiple opportunities to accelerate the Company's progress and drive value creation. The recent investment enables the advancement of AP‐PA02 and AP‐SA02 in Phase 2 clinical trials."

Armata Pharmaceuticals is a self-described "clinical‐stage biotechnology company focused on the development of pathogen‐specific bacteriophage therapeutics for the treatment of antibiotic‐resistant and difficult‐to‐treat bacterial infections using its proprietary bacteriophage‐based technology."

The California-based pharmaceutical company said it is currently "developing and advancing a broad pipeline of natural and synthetic phage candidates, including clinical candidates for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and other pathogens."

Birx announced her retirement in December 2020 during an interview by saying, "I want the Biden administration to be successful. I've worked since 1980 in the federal government, first through the military, then through [the Department of Health and Human Services], and then detailed to the State Department and detailed here, where I hope I was helpful. I will be helpful in any role people think I can be helpful in, and then I will retire."

Birx left her position as White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator in January 2021, according to a LinkedIn profile.

The same month, she resigned from her position as the Coordinator of the United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS and U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy.

In March 2021, Birx became a Senior Fellow at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, which said: "Deborah L. Birx, M.D., has spent her career serving the United States, first as an Army Colonel and later, running some of the most high-profile and influential programs at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Department of State."

In March 2021, Birx joined the board of directors at Innoviva – a self-described "diversified holding company with a portfolio of royalties that include respiratory assets partnered with Glaxo Group Limited (GSK), as well as a growing portfolio of innovative healthcare investments and assets in areas of significant unmet medical need."

Also in March 2021, Birx became a "Medical and Science Advisor" at ActivePure – a technology company with a self-described "commitment to creating the purest indoor space possible."

In September 2022, Birx joined the board of directors for Nanolive – a Swiss microscope company that claims to provide "breakthrough imaging and analysis solutions that accelerate research in growth industries such as drug discovery and cell therapy."

In October 2022, Birx was named a member of the Federal Advisory Board for Palantir – a software company specializing in data analytics and data integration. TechCrunch previously reported, "As of 2013, Palantir was used by at least 12 groups within the US Government including the CIA, DHS, NSA, FBI, the CDC, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, Special Operations Command, West Point, the Joint IED-defeat organization and Allies, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children."

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Former WH COVID-19 coordinator says officials never promised vaccines would prevent infection



Former White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said Wednesday that although more than half of Americans have been infected with the COVID-19 virus or vaccinated, the U.S. has still not met a herd immunity threshold to end the pandemic.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data on Tuesday showing that nearly 60% of Americans have coronavirus antibodies in their blood. The number of children with COVID-19 antibodies is even higher — almost 75% of children 11 and younger have antibodies, providing at least some protection from the virus.

Even so, CDC officials are still encouraging people to get vaccinated to increase protection against severe disease, and Birx echoed their concerns, adding that the U.S. is still far from herd immunity against the virus.

"The issue with herd immunity, we know natural infection and we know now vaccination doesn't lead to long-term protection against infection," Birx said on "America's Newsroom."

"So this isn't like measles, mumps, and rubella, where you get [the vaccine] and you're protected for a long time. We know now with this virus that natural infection and the immunity that you develop does not lead to durable long-term protection."

"The only time you could talk about herd immunity is when you know that you have durable protection," she added.

Her comments come just a day after White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said that the U.S. is "out of the pandemic phase," but that the U.S. will never "eradicate this virus."

Fauci told PBS NewsHour that people may need to get vaccine boosters yearly and for "longer" than they expect in order to keep virus infections low.

"That might be every year, that might be longer, in order to keep that level low. But, right now, we are not in the pandemic phase in this country," said.

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Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer suggested that the messaging from public health officials on the vaccines has been "confusing." He asked Birx if the government's messaging about the vaccines failed, noting that breakthrough infections among those who are fully vaccinated and even boosted against COVID-19 have caused people to question the efficacy of the vaccines.

Birx, who is on a media tour this week to promote her new tell-all book about her time with the Trump administration, answered that the government has failed to be fully transparent with the American people, which she says has led to distrust in public health officials and misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

"In everybody's head was, 'this is like measles, mumps, and rubella,' because that's what we know. So they thought that they were superhuman and invincible once they were vaccinated," but that wasn't the case, Birx said.

"I made it very clear to the president and vice president that this vaccine was never studied to create what we call sterilizing immunity, the invincibility to never be infected again," she said. "And I think the White House understood that, and frankly we made it very clear it was never studied to do anything but protect against severe disease and hospitalization, which it's done a pretty good job about."

The record is not as clear as Birx suggests. It is true that in late 2020, before the COVID-19 vaccines were released widely, both Fauci and BIrx warned that scientists were unsure that the vaccines would prevent infection, even though they appeared to be effective against severe disease.

But at times, Fauci favorably compared the COVID-19 vaccines to other vaccinations such as the polio vaccine, which eradicated that disease. And once the vaccine rollout ramped up in February and March 2021, he touted studies that suggested vaccination slowed the spread of infections, before backtracking months later once the Delta surge demonstrated that fully vaccinated people could still have breakthrough infections.

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