President Trump's newly appointed vaccine czar, Moncef Slaoui, plans to divest his equity holdings in a company leading the coronavirus vaccine development effort, the Department of Health and Human Services told ABC News.
The stock price as of Monday afternoon was at $80.00, nearly double the price just at end of last month, when Slaoui last acquired about 18,000 in options at the exercise price of about $46.37, an SEC filing shows. At the beginning of this year, Moderna's stock price was as low as $19.23. The previous year, another SEC record shows, Slaoui had acquired 54,660 in stock options, with exercise price set as just $14.34.
"The financial conflict of interest issue is still here, and that interest is that as an official in charge of policy making, he has financial interests that could benefit from that," Payne told ABC News."That's not only from these Moderna options, but as a venture capitalist with this company Medicxi."In addition to his leadership roles in various pharmaceutical and biotech companies, Slaoui is also a partner at Medicxi, life sciences-focused investment firm.
"Given his history and also his involvement with this type of company, it doesn't give me a great deal of confidence that even if he divests from them, that he will be serving the public interest as opposed to the interests of the companies with which he was associated," CREW's Canter said.
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