Birx this week also joined the board of Innoviva, a Bay Area investment firm that collects royalties on certain lucrative drugs from GlaxoSmithKline, according to a regulatory document. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Birx spent years working in various parts of the federal public health bureaucracy, including as ambassador general and global AIDS coordinator during the Obama administration.
But she gained national recognition with Trump, who appointed her to help coordinate Covid’s response early in the pandemic. Birx played a central role in the early months of the effort, sometimes drawing criticism from Democrats for his optimistic portraits of the unstable federal response and refusal to refute former President Donald Trump’s inaccurate claims.
However, she ended up falling out of favor with Trump, as he pushed for a quick reopening of the country, while the virus remained furious. She spent her last months on the task force traveling across the country, asking state officials to focused on limiting the spread of the virus while maintaining public health restrictions.
Biden officials during the transition had debated keeping Birx to help with the ongoing response, but in December she announced plans to retire from the government, citing the tribute that last year’s ballot took from her family.
In January, Birx said in an interview with CBS that he often considered leaving the Covid task force and had to deal with “outside consultants” who often presented Trump with conflicting information about the pandemic.