In the twilight of the Biden administration, a biomedical firm named Vaccine Company Inc. received a $28 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.
The company, which was established in 2022, has a chief financial officer who previously served as one of former President Joe Biden's top COVID advisors. This has raised eyebrows, particularly among conservatives, who question the transparency and accountability of the grant allocation process.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, the grant was awarded in September 2024 by the NIH's Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. The recipient, Vaccine Company Inc., has left little trace of its activities or how it has utilized the taxpayer funds. The company's mailing address is a nondescript post office box in Bethesda, Maryland, which adds to the intrigue surrounding the company's operations.
Senator Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) has expressed her concerns about the grant, questioning its legitimacy. In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., she called for an investigation into the reasons behind the Biden administration's decision to award millions of taxpayer dollars to this obscure firm. She also suggested the possibility of reclaiming any unspent portion of the grant.
"From listing its mailing address as a P.O. box to being run by former Biden staffers, there are alarm bells going off as to how and why Vaccine Company, Inc. was awarded a lucrative government contract," Ernst told the Free Beacon. "Unfortunately, there are more questions than answers, because everything this company does is shrouded in mystery. It should not be this hard to figure out where $28 million in tax dollars are going. The American people deserve to know."
The company, which was supposed to use its $28 million HHS grant to develop vaccines against West Nile, dengue, and Zika viruses, has made considerable efforts to remain out of the public eye. It does not have a website, and none of its top officers, including its chief financial officer, former Biden COVID adviser Sonya Bernstein, have publicly disclosed their association with the company.
Ernst's scrutiny of Vaccine Company Inc. coincides with Elon Musk's ongoing government-wide audit through the Department of Government Efficiency, aimed at reducing wasteful spending. In her letter to Kennedy, Ernst suggested that the Biden administration's $28 million grant to Vaccine Company could be a prime target for this audit.
The company's business registration filings in various states provide some clues about its operations. The most detailed filing was submitted in California in June, where the company disclosed that Sonya Bernstein, described by Politico in 2021 as Bidens COVID "wunderkind," is its chief financial officer. However, Bernstein's LinkedIn page does not mention her role at Vaccine Company, though it does highlight her service as Bidens senior COVID aide in 2021 and 2022.
Another former Biden administration official associated with the company is Julie Ledgerwood, who serves as the company's chief medical officer. Ledgerwood, a former HHS official, worked on Operation Warp Speed until her departure from federal service in May 2022. From there, she joined an unnamed "venture backed new company," according to her LinkedIn page.
The venture capital firm referenced in Ledgerwoods rsum appears to be Arch Venture Partners, an Illinois-based biotechnology investment firm. Arch identified Vaccine Company as one of the many companies in its investment portfolio in a July 2024 disclosure.
The company's chief executive officer, according to its California business registration, is former Pfizer executive Susan Silbermann. Before joining Vaccine Company, Silbermann created and led Pfizers global COVID-19 task force. However, her LinkedIn page does not mention her affiliation with Vaccine Company.
Public records indicate that Vaccine Company has been active in vaccine research. The firm was involved in at least two clinical trials of a COVID mRNA vaccine in 2023, according to Synapse, a global drug intelligence database.
However, the company's primary place of business remains a mystery. Its business registration filings in Maryland, California, and Massachusetts each list a different address. The federal government has on file a post office box in Bethesda, Maryland as the company's primary place of business, the same address where the Biden administration sent the $28 million taxpayer grant.
A public job posting suggests that the company's true headquarters may be in South San Francisco, California. The posting, for a viral immune assays scientist, describes Vaccine Company as an "early-stage biotechnology company with the mission of discovering, developing, and delivering exceptional vaccines to people everywhere."
However, the company's business registration in Massachusetts tells a different story. According to that filing, Vaccine Companys principal office is in Chicago, in the same office suite shared by its private sector backer, Arch Venture Partners.
Ernst has demanded that Kennedy provide the results of his investigation into Vaccine Company by March 17.
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