Pfizer hires senior FDA official for top role
On Monday, Pfizer named former senior FDA official Patrizia Cavazzoni as its chief medical officer.
Until this year, Cavazzoni headed the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), which regulates drugs sold to the American public. She resigned from the agency in January amid President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Pfizer’s appointment of Cavazzoni—who served two decades in senior executive roles at drugmakers before joining the FDA—has sparked renewed corruption allegations over the FDA's “revolving door” with Big Pharma.
The Big Pharma-Big Government Connection
Every FDA commissioner since 2000 has found a top spot in the pharmaceutical industry. Robert Califf, the most recent commissioner, secured leadership roles at Verify Life Sciences and Google Health between his two terms. Former commissioner Scott Gottlieb sits on the board of directors of Pfizer and Illumina. Andrew von Eschenbach served on the boards of BioTime and Viamet Pharmaceuticals, Mark McClellan joined the boards of Johnson & Johnson and Cigna, and Jane Henney secured a spot on the board of AstraZeneca. Margaret Hamburg joined the board of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals after she left the FDA in 2015. During her tenure as commissioner, Hamburg held financial interests in FDA-regulated drug companies through an exclusive hedge fund managed by her husband’s company.
This revolving door is not exclusive to the FDA. A study found that a third of the 78 presidential appointments to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) between 2004 and 2020 later secured private industry jobs that raised concerns about conflicts of interest as they may have been contemplating those industry jobs while working the government agency regulating those industries.
The federal government has been slow to take measures against these conflicts of interest, if at all. During the first Trump administration, FDA appointees were required to sign ethics pledges that they would not engage in Big Pharma lobbying for five years after leaving their government roles, though it did not forswear employment in the industry. That pledge requirement was terminated on January 19, 2021, Trump’s last day in office.
Kennedy vows change
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has repeatedly vowed to “shut the revolving door,” most recently in his first post-confirmation address to HHS staff last week.
“We will remove conflicts of interest from the committees and research partners whenever possible or balance them with other stakeholders,” Kennedy said. “We will shut the revolving door.”
