Private Eyes on Janet Woodcock

Amphastar Pharmaceuticals hired a private detective firm to poke around in the lives of both Janet Woodcock, the director of FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, and Moheb Nasr, who is in charge of the Office of New Drug Quality Assessment, Politico reports. The company says it wanted to determine whether the officials were favoring its competitor, Momenta. The investigative firm Kroll, Politico reports, came up empty. Amphastar's general counsel, Jason Shandell, says it has the "right to question your government" and that "there was no impropriety here." Still, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) wasn't pleased. "Pharmaceutical companies should be focusing on getting their drugs approved based on health research and science rather than wasting their resources hiring private investigators to snoop around the lives of FDA regulators and their families," he says.