The Senate on Thursday confirmed anti-aging research investor Jim O’Neill for the second-highest position at the Department of Health and Human Services, a step toward an era of deregulation in biomedical research from the highest levels of the department. 

O’Neill, President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve one step below HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as deputy secretary, was confirmed on partisan lines in a vote of 52 to 43.

Recommended Stories

• Democrats step up attack on healthcare provisions in GOP megabill
• Nearly 11 million uninsured under One Big Beautiful Bill Act, CBO says
• Trump IVF push alienates key members of pro-family coalition

O’Neill’s long record of funding anti-aging research and advocacy for deregulation in bringing new health innovations to market could become a new pillar of the Make America Healthy Again agenda reshaping federal public health programs.

During the first Trump administration, O’Neill was floated as a nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration because of his work on FDA reform during his six year tenure in the George W. Bush HHS. He was ultimately passed over for the role in favor of Dr. Scott Gottlieb.

O’Neill also is a close associate of biomedical venture capitalist and Trump mega donor Peter Thiel. After leaving his post at HHS in 2008, O’Neill made the switch to the private sector, running several anti-aging research funding companies within Thiel’s orbit. 

Metabolic disease and neurodegenerative conditions, particularly Alzheimer’s, have been a central focus of a variety of O’Neill’s venture capital efforts. He has invested or advised investment in more than 60 science and technology companies.

O’Neill has also been a staunch advocate for deregulation of the FDA approval process for new pharmaceuticals and technologies, which might signal that anti-aging research could get a boost from HHS.

Shortly before his nomination to the deputy secretary slot, O’Neill posted on X that the U.S. healthcare market is burned by “hundreds of bureaucratic rules, perverse incentives, and opaque pricing make health care more expensive and less efficient than it should be.”

O’Neill has also been criticized by Democrats for advocating for an incentive structure of financial compensation for organ donors to shorten the organ transplant waitlist. 

Much of O’Neill’s confirmation hearings in the Senate Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee revolved around whether or not O’Neill supported Trump and Kennedy’s positions on controversial issues, including reductions in healthcare spending incorporated into the 2026 budget reconciliation package. 

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, used his opening speech for the executive session to vote on O’Neill’s confirmation to criticize Trump’s “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill and the effect it would have of reducing enrollment in Medicaid.

“I asked Mr. O’Neill to give a straightforward yes or No answer on whether he supports cutting Medicaid during his Finance Committee confirmation hearing,” said Wyden in May. “All he did was repeat the same tired talking point about how only certain groups deserve healthcare.” 

O’Neill during the hearing supported cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid program to ensure that the program is funded for the most vulnerable. 

DEMOCRATS STEP UP ATTACK ON HEALTHCARE PROVISIONS IN GOP MEGABILL

Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) said during the committee vote that O’Neill was “uniquely qualified to enact positive change at HHS.”

Sens. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tim Sheehy (R-MT) did not vote Thursday.