Tweet this: Gottlieb’s leaving, and so is FDA’s highly effective communicator

Even before Scott Gottlieb took the top job at the Food and Drug Administration, there were signs his tenure would be different.

For one, he had ties to the pharmaceutical industry — he served on company boards, he worked in venture capital firms that invested in health care companies, and he was a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank that supports deregulation.

OK, he also has a medical degree and once served as an FDA deputy commissioner. But those attributes were largely overlooked — or simply dismissed — by naysayers who worried he would allow drug makers to have their way with the agency, especially in a pro-business Trump administration.

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