President Donald Trump wants to remake the Food and Drug Administration. And he happens to have a “fantastic person” in mind to do it, he said Tuesday — someone who will turn the agency into an industry-friendly shop that cranks out new cures on the double.
But does anyone really want a deregulated FDA? STAT canvassed biopharma insiders, physicians, Wall Street analysts, and FDA veterans. Their verdict: Trump’s plan sounds like a solution in search of a problem.
Trump is weighing several candidates for FDA commissioner who would seek to radically change how the agency vets new drugs. One candidate has proposed scaling back the requirements for approval and letting doctors and patients sort out what’s worth trying. Another once claimed a “Yelp for drugs,” posting consumer reviews of medications, would better serve patients than the existing FDA. A third favors approving treatments once they’ve passed an initial safety test, regardless of whether they work.
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