FDA names longtime cancer scientist Pazdur to lead drug center

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration connected Tuesday named a longtime regulator of crab medicines to pb the agency's cause center, replacing the former cause director who was precocious ousted aft an ethics complaint.

Dr. Richard Pazdur, a 26-year seasoned of the agency, volition go manager of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, the FDA's largest unit. A crab specialist, Pazdur has antecedently served successful galore FDA roles, astir precocious starring the agency's Oncology Center of Excellence.

Pazdur's assignment comes conscionable implicit a week aft Dr. George Tidmarsh abruptly departed the bureau aft national morals lawyers began reviewing “serious concerns astir his idiosyncratic conduct,” according to a authorities statement. Tidmarsh, a erstwhile pharmaceutical enforcement and scientist, had been recruited to the bureau by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.

A suit filed aboriginal this period alleged that Tidmarsh utilized his presumption astatine the FDA to prosecute a “longstanding idiosyncratic vendetta” against the president of a Canadian drugmaker's committee of directors. The 2 men had antecedently worked arsenic concern associates astatine respective pharmaceutical companies, according to the lawsuit.

Tidmarsh has denied immoderate wrongdoing successful media interviews. He did not respond to requests for remark sent by The Associated Press to him and his lawyer.

Pazdur is 1 of the past remaining members of the FDA’s elder enactment to past months of retirements, firings, resignations, and other actions by the Trump medication that forced longtime employees retired of the agency.

He'll beryllium tasked with bringing stableness to a portion that has been riven by debased morale, return-to-office orders and turf battles with different parts of the agency, including the vaccine and biologics halfway led by Dr. Vinay Prasad.

The FDA’s cause halfway has mislaid much than 1,000 staffers implicit the past twelvemonth to layoffs oregon resignations, according to bureau figures. The halfway is liable for the review, information and prime power of medicine and over-the-counter medicines.

Pazdur volition besides inherit respective caller initiatives announced by Makary, including a voucher program that aims to reappraisal drugs that are deemed a “national priority” successful conscionable 1 to 2 months. Previously, the FDA's fastest cause reviews required six months.

As the FDA's apical crab specialist, Pazdur antecedently oversaw efforts to expedite the approvals of experimental crab therapies based connected aboriginal measures, specified arsenic tumor shrinkage. That attack has been criticized by galore successful academia, including Prasad, who spent years publishing papers scrutinizing the FDA's approach to crab medicines earlier joining the bureau earlier this year.

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