Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, who grew to become commissioner of the Meals and Drug Administration simply weeks earlier than the coronavirus pandemic starte
Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, who grew to become commissioner of the Meals and Drug Administration simply weeks earlier than the coronavirus pandemic started, resigned on Wednesday because the administration of President Biden started.
Dr. Janet Woodcock, the longtime head of the F.D.A.’s Middle for Drug Analysis and Assessment, will function appearing commissioner, in response to an company official.
Starting in Might, Dr. Woodcock had been assigned to Operation Warp Pace, the previous administration’s program to speed up vaccine and therapy improvement in opposition to the coronavirus.
She has labored on the F.D.A. since 1986, serving in quite a lot of key roles, amongst them chief medical officer and deputy commissioner.
The Biden administration has not but nominated a everlasting commissioner, however Dr. Woodcock is without doubt one of the candidates into consideration, in response to a number of advisers to the brand new president’s transition staff. Dr. Amy Abernethy, principal deputy commissioner, can also be into consideration, as is Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a former company official, who’s vice dean for public well being follow and neighborhood engagement at Johns Hopkins College.
Dr. Hahn’s resignation was anticipated, a part of the routine departure of senior political appointees that occurs when a brand new administration takes workplace. In a farewell message to the F.D.A. workers on Wednesday, he wrote: “As a nation, and as a public well being company, we confronted some massive challenges and turbulent instances over the previous 12 months, most notably these stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic. Via all of it, F.D.A. workers have been essential in serving to to reply to the illness with very actual scientific advances just like the authorization of the primary nonprescription OTC [over the counter] Covid check, the authorization and approval of an anti-viral agent and the primary two F.D.A. approved Covid-19 vaccines.”
Dr. Hahn confronted appreciable criticism over the course of the pandemic, accused of bowing to political stress from President Trump and the White Home in granting emergency use authorizations for unproven remedies like hydroxychloroquine that didn’t produce proof that they labored. In latest months, he has presided over critiques of the primary vaccines to be allowed in opposition to the virus, the Pfizer and Moderna merchandise.
Prior to now beneath different presidential administrations, Dr. Woodcock, 72, has been within the operating for the F.D.A.’s high submit. She was first delivered to the F.D.A.’s drug division by Dr. David Kessler, the previous F.D.A. commissioner who was named the chief science officer for the Biden administration’s vaccine efforts, which is able to now not be known as Operation Warp Pace.
The Biden administration has not indicated when an F.D.A. commissioner could be named.