Biden Picks Robert Califf to Lead the US FDA
According to The New York Times, U.S. President Joe Biden announced today that he will nominate former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert M. Califf to lead the agency again. A cardiologist and longtime adviser to pharmaceutical companie
According to The New York Times, U.S. President Joe Biden announced today that he will nominate former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert M. Califf to lead the agency once again.
A cardiologist and longtime adviser to pharmaceutical companies, Califf led the FDA during the final year of the Obama administration.
“Dr. Califf is one of America’s most experienced clinical trial experts, and at this critical time in our nation’s fight to end the coronavirus pandemic, he has the experience and expertise to lead the Food and Drug Administration,” Biden said in a statement.
Califf has long been a strong advocate of tobacco control. Before serving as FDA commissioner, he was the agency’s deputy commissioner for medical products and tobacco. Speaking earlier this year alongside other former commissioners, he said: “I have never encountered lawyers more capable or more vicious than those I dealt with in the tobacco industry. It’s remarkable and terrifying from a public health standpoint.”
After stepping down as Duke University’s vice chancellor for clinical and translational health, Califf served as a senior adviser to health technology company Verily Life Sciences and its sister company Google Health. According to its website, Califf still serves as an adjunct professor of medicine at Duke University and Stanford University, and is a member of the board of directors of biopharmaceutical company Cytokinetics.
Califf said he was honored to be nominated for the position “at a critical moment for our nation,” adding that “there is still much work to be done, and if confirmed, I look forward to rejoining the FDA’s outstanding team and helping them address these challenges with a mission to serve the public.”
Since Margaret Hamburg left the position in 2012, the FDA has had seven different commissioners, including Califf.
