President Trump announced tonight he's nominating Scott Gottlieb as the new Food and Drug Administration commissioner. Here's what you need to know about him.
- He's a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a venture capitalist.
- He was also a deputy FDA commissioner under President George W. Bush.
- He's a more establishment Republican than some of the other reported candidates, like Jim O'Neill, an ally of venture capitalist and Trump adviser Peter Thiel.
- But Gottlieb is sure to be a reliable advocate for most conservatives' goals for the FDA, like speeding approval times.
- As we reported in a pre-launch edition of Vitals in December, Gottlieb gave a pretty good idea of what his FDA agenda would look like in Senate testimony in October: rewriting FDA's rules to help it approve more generic substitutes, and encouraging Congress to let drug makers provide discounts at the front end, not rebates at the back end.
- He's a frequent contributor to Forbes and has written many articles about FDA issues.
- He has told STAT that he would pay special attention to the safety of the blood supply and unsafe foods.
- He has been a vocal critic of vaccine safety skeptics — a stance that could create conflicts with Trump, who has questioned the safety of vaccines many times.