Tracey Beth Hoeg, acting head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration‘s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, was fired Friday after six months in the role, amid several high-level official exits from the federal public health agency.
Hoeg confirmed the dismissal on X, saying the day marked six months as CDER head and that she was fired. She was the fifth person to run CDER in the 15 months of President Donald Trump‘s second term. Her exit comes days after Commissioner Marty Makary resigned.
‘Not My Choice’
In an interview with MD Reports, Hoeg said two FDA officials arrived at her office and told her she could either resign or be terminated. She refused. “I said I’m not signing a letter of resignation if it’s not my choice,” she said. The officials told her the decision came from someone “way above their pay grade.”
Reuters, earlier on Friday, citing sources, had reported her expected departure.
White House Resets The Roster
The departures are part of a broader restructuring at the health department. White House-appointed Health and Human Services Deputy Chris Klomp has been working to replace controversial appointees with more conventional selections, according to Reuters. Several lower-level officials brought in by Makary, including chief of staff Jim Traficant, deputy chief of staff Samuel Doran and policy director Sanjula Jain-Nagpal, are also expected to leave.
Hoeg's tenure at CDER included safety reviews of RSV treatments from Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK), Sanofi S.A. (NASDAQ:SNY) and AstraZeneca PLC (NASDAQ:AZN), potentially adding near-term regulatory uncertainty to those pipelines.
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