How do you re­place a rock star like Scott Got­tlieb at the FDA? Maybe you can't

Any­one look­ing for a con­ve­nient weath­er vane to de­ter­mine the re­ac­tion to Scott Got­tlieb’s abrupt de­par­ture from the FDA need go no fur­ther than the $XBI. The S&P Biotech ETF took a 4% hit. And it was down an­oth­er 1.8% ahead of the bell on Thurs­day.


The mar­ket and the in­dus­try loved Got­tlieb, as we un­der­scored on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions with in­dus­try sur­veys high­light­ing the in­tense en­thu­si­asm for some­one who ad­vo­cat­ed for col­lab­o­rat­ing with the drug in­dus­try. Bio­phar­ma had a part­ner in Got­tlieb, and they all knew it.

Va­p­ing and the opi­oid epi­dem­ic — while big pub­lic pol­i­cy is­sues — meant ab­solute­ly noth­ing to the in­dus­try. An agency com­mit­ted to push­ing ap­provals while em­brac­ing in­no­va­tion at a time some land­mark ther­a­pies are be­ing ap­proved at a more rapid pace: That was pure gold. And it wasn’t just lip ser­vice. In this brave new world J&J could slip around the gold stan­dard on de­pres­sion drug da­ta and score an OK this week for es­ke­t­a­mine, a drug they plan to make a block­buster. A few years ago, that like­ly wouldn’t have hap­pened.

The one thing that could set­tle in­vestors and ex­ecs back down would be a new head of the FDA that could walk the line be­tween main­tain­ing the some­what weak­ened gold stan­dard on piv­otal da­ta and a free-for-all that would clear­ly aban­don a com­mit­ment to ap­prov­ing safe and ef­fec­tive drugs that met the risk/ben­e­fit analy­sis. 

Got­tlieb emerged ear­ly as a fa­vorite for the FDA job. He had ex­pe­ri­ence at the agency, he fit in­to the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s orb with vows to speed things up, and an amaz­ing num­ber of in­dus­try in­sid­ers knew him and liked him.

He quick­ly be­came a rock star in bio­phar­ma, tweet­ing his way through every day about pol­i­cy.

So how do you re­place him and main­tain the same lev­el of en­thu­si­asm in bio­phar­ma? The usu­al sus­pects don’t cut it. 

We’re not even sure right now who will be the in­ter­im chief. Stephen Os­troff has tak­en the helm on a strict­ly in­ter­im ba­sis be­fore, but he re­tired last fall. Amy Aber­nethy was named prin­ci­pal deputy com­mis­sion­er just 2 months ago, com­ing to the FDA from a se­nior sci­en­tif­ic po­si­tion at Flat­iron af­ter a stint at Duke. She’s been tapped as the like­ly in­ter­im chief, and will def­i­nite­ly make the ru­mor mill as pos­si­bly the next head of the FDA. But she’s still large­ly an un­known in the in­dus­try, so don’t ex­pect much en­thu­si­asm right off the bat.

On the oth­er hand, if she gets the in­ter­im job, she’ll have a chance to shine. And Pres­i­dent Trump doesn’t seem pressed to get big jobs filled fast in Wash­ing­ton DC, so the in­ter­im role could last awhile. 

Na­tion­al Can­cer In­sti­tutes di­rec­tor Ned Sharp­less has emerged as one of the most fre­quent­ly cit­ed can­di­dates for the FDA job, with an ear­ly push from the Wall Street Jour­nal, which al­so quick­ly named Brett Giroir, as­sis­tant sec­re­tary at HHS, as an­oth­er pos­si­ble suc­ces­sor.

Jim O’Neill ev­i­dent­ly had a shot at the job a cou­ple of years ago, but the in­dus­try was shocked by the fact that Pe­ter Thiel’s can­di­date was even in the run­ning. He’s been as­so­ci­at­ed with some loony en­deav­ors, like seast­eading and the hunt for im­mor­tal­i­ty, and the in­dus­try sees him as a dis­as­ter wait­ing to hap­pen. In this en­vi­ron­ment, that makes O’Neill a cred­i­ble threat again, though it seems far fetched.

But he’s still go­ing to make every­one’s list. Fun­ny how that works.

Richard Paz­dur

How about Richard Paz­dur, the on­col­o­gy czar at the FDA whose com­mit­ment to rapid drug re­views has played a ma­te­r­i­al role in rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing on­col­o­gy R&D over the last 5 years? It’s been sug­gest­ed. But when it comes to agency in­sid­ers, though, no one out­shines Janet Wood­cock at CDER. She not on­ly knows where the bod­ies are buried at the FDA, she of­ten helped put them there. Maybe she could cap a decades-long run as FDA chief? 

Janet Wood­cock

Stranger things have hap­pened.

Two years ago I called Got­tlieb the Re­pub­li­can shad­ow com­mis­sion­er, out front of­fer­ing po­si­tions on re­form­ing the FDA. We don’t seem to have one of those now, by virtue of the fact that no one ex­pect­ed Got­tlieb to stand down so soon. And with a na­tion­al elec­tion loom­ing next year with a wild­ly con­tro­ver­sial pres­i­dent, any­one who does get the job may ul­ti­mate­ly prove an in­ter­im chief in any case.

Bio­phar­ma hates reg­u­la­to­ry un­cer­tain­ty of any kind. This year we’ve had a gov­ern­ment shut­down fol­lowed by an abrupt res­ig­na­tion by Got­tlieb. Un­cer­tain­ty at the FDA ap­pears to now be the rule. 

In a note to in­vestors, Jef­feries’ Michael Yee not­ed that who­ev­er steps in will find an agency that has es­tab­lished a “pro-in­no­va­tion” ap­proach that won’t sud­den­ly end now, re­gard­less of who gets the job.

That sounds rea­son­able, but it won’t stop the fret­ting that’s go­ing on now. Ap­proach­es are one thing, ex­e­cu­tion is an­oth­er.

Image courtesy of The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Pro­tect­ing the glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem – what’s at stake?

We are living in a new era of healthcare that is rapidly advancing progress impacting patient outcomes and experiences. We’ve seen a remarkable pace of transformational innovation, applied research, and advanced clinical development over the last decade.

Despite this tremendous progress, there is much more work to be done, and patients are counting on us – now more than ever – to continue that momentum. At the heart of our industry is a focus on developing and delivering medicines for some of the world’s most challenging diseases, including those that have few or no effective treatments today.

End­points 20(+2) un­der 40, 2023; Bio­phar­ma's high­est-paid CEOs; N-of-1 CRISPR sto­ry goes on af­ter tragedy; and more

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

We will be off Monday in observance of Memorial Day — and when we get back, it will be a straight march to ASCO, BIO and more. Enjoy the (long) weekend!

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Rich Horgan (R) with his late brother, Terry

Rich Hor­gan spear­head­ed a gene ther­a­py for his broth­er. The tri­al end­ed in tragedy, but the work con­tin­ues for more pa­tients

Rich Horgan’s quest to create a custom gene therapy for his brother, Terry, ended in tragedy. But Horgan doesn’t believe it’s the end of the story.

Terry, a 27-year-old patient with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, died last October just eight days after receiving the therapy in a clinical trial in which he was the only participant. The case raised questions about the safety of certain gene therapies and what would happen to other drug programs under a nonprofit that Horgan created, called Cure Rare Disease.

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Bio­phar­ma's 20 high­est-paid CEOs of 2022, each bring­ing in $20M+ pay­days

Even in a down year for much of the biopharma market, 20 CEOs brought in pay packages valued at more than $20 million, an Endpoints News analysis found.

Endpoints collected data on more than 350 CEO compensation packages, covering a wide range of pharma, biotech, and life sciences companies. All told, the 20 largest earners made over $725 million in 2022 — an average package of $36.4 million. Three brought in paydays over $50 million, and one CEO broke the $100 million mark.

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Mi­rati’s drug sitra­va­tinib flops PhI­II in com­bo with Op­di­vo for cer­tain lung can­cer

Mirati Therapeutics’ path to a second drug approval will likely have to wait. The San Diego biotech company said Wednesday that its investigational lung cancer drug failed a Phase III trial testing it in combination with Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo.

The drug, sitravatinib, and Opdivo weren’t better than the chemo drug docetaxel at keeping patients alive, Mirati said in a press release. The spectrum-selective kinase inhibitor missed the primary goal of overall survival in patients with second- or third-line advanced non-squamous, non-small cell lung cancer.

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The 20(+2) un­der 40: Your guide to the next gen­er­a­tion of biotech lead­ers

This year’s list of 20 biotech leaders under the age of 40 includes a huge range of ambitions. Some of our honorees are planning to create the next big drug giant. Others are pushing the bounds of AI. One is working to revolutionize TB testing. All are compelling talents who are still young in age, but already far along in achievement.

And, as in years past, we went over. The 20 are actually 22 because of two double profiles that reflect how important teamwork is in the industry. As one of our honorees, Joe Illingworth of DJS Antibodies, told me in our interview, “It takes a village to raise a biotech.”

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FDA ap­proves Lex­i­con’s heart-fail­ure drug af­ter de­feat in di­a­betes

The FDA on Friday approved Lexicon’s heart failure drug sotagliflozin following a string of setbacks for the pharma company, including an FDA rejection in diabetes and the loss of a development deal with Sanofi.

The dual SGLT1 and SGLT2 inhibitor will be marketed as Inpefa and is a once-daily tablet. It’s been approved to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death and heart failure-related hospitalization or urgent visits in adults with heart failure or type 2 diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, and other cardiovascular risk factors. The label spans the range of left ventricular ejection fraction, including preserved ejection fraction and reduced ejection fraction, as well as patients with or without diabetes, Lexicon said Friday.

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Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion to re­ceive few­er Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech vac­cine dos­es un­der amend­ed con­tract

The European Commission has made a few changes to its vaccine contract with Pfizer and BioNTech, reducing the dose volume while extending the delivery timeline to cope with “evolving public health needs.”

The Commission previously struck a contract in May 2021 for 900 million doses, with the option to purchase another 900 million. Of those, 450 million were expected to be delivered in 2023, though an amendment now calls for fewer doses. While neither the Commission nor Pfizer and BioNTech have revealed an exact amount, an unnamed source told Reuters that the amendment reduces the remaining expected doses by about a third.

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Teresa Bitetti, Takeda's president of the global oncology business unit

Take­da wins pri­or­i­ty re­view for $400M col­orec­tal can­cer drug, li­censed from Hutchmed in Jan­u­ary

Takeda and Hutchmed scored a priority review Thursday afternoon for a colorectal cancer drug, the companies announced.

The experimental drug in question is fruquintinib, previously approved in China in 2018 to treat metastatic colorectal cancer. Takeda and Hutchmed are aiming to bring fruquintinib to the US and other countries outside China in the same indication, and the FDA set its decision date for Nov. 30 of this year.

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