After the US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb steps down today, the New York Times reports he will be returning part time to a conservative think tank where he will work on health policy.
President Donald Trump nominated Gottlieb to the FDA post in March 2017 and he was confirmed that May. But last month, Gottlieb unexpectedly announced that he would be resigning. In his resignation letter, he touted his work on modernizing how novel medical technologies, gene therapies, and targeted treatments are developed, as GenomeWeb reported at the time. According to Washington Post, Gottlieb said when he announced his resignation that the position left him little time to spend with his family.
The Times says Gottlieb will be re-joining the American Enterprise Institute and will spend about six days a month there. He further told the paper that he'd be spending the summer with his family before returning to full-time work. At the AEI, Gottlieb tells the Times he will be working on Medicare programs that prevent competition and issues of brand-name companies blocking generic drugs from entering the market.
Ned Sharpless, the director of the National Cancer Institute, is to serve as acting FDA commissioner.