The FDA-Pfizer Revolving Door

The FDA has proven to be a feckless regulator of all things medical.  Its revolving door hiring practices are one reason:

https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/pfizer-could-use-a-woman-like-patricia

Pfizer Could Use a Woman Like Patricia Cavazzoni
Former head of FDA’s drug center joins Pfizer as chief medical officer
By John Leake - February 24, 2025

STAT just reported the following:

Patrizia Cavazzoni, formerly the top regulator of the drug division of the Food and Drug Administration, will join Pfizer as chief medical officer, a role in which she will lead the drug firm’s regulatory, pharmacovigilance, and drug safety operations, the company announced Monday.

Cavazzoni was the head of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), from 2020 until her departure in January. She was one of several top FDA officials who left the agency ahead of the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic who has campaigned for the president on promises to shake up the FDA, as the new secretary of Health and Human Services Department.

The story reminds me of the 2017 New Yorker report, “The Family that Built an Empire of Pain,” which detailed the machinations of the Sackler family. When Arthur died in 1987, his brothers renamed their family drug business, Purdue Pharma. In 1995 they received FDA- approval for OxyContin.

Purdue had conducted no clinical studies on how addictive or prone to abuse the drug might be. But the F.D.A., in an unusual step, approved a package insert for OxyContin which announced that the drug was safer than rival painkillers, because the patented delayed-absorption mechanism !is believed to reduce the abuse liability.” ... The F.D.A. examiner who oversaw the process, Dr. Curtis Wright, left the agency shortly afterward. Within two years, he had taken a job at Purdue.

Everyone who works at the FDA understands how the revolving door works. Be a friendly boy or girl while working as a federal regulator, and one of the big drug companies will give you a nice home after you leave the agency.

In Ms. Cavazzoni’s case, she worked at Pfizer before going to the work for the FDA in 2018, which makes one wonder if she served as an informant for the company about the Administration’s deliberations between 2018 and now.

Pfizer could use a woman like Patrizia Cavazzoni.