Stephen Hahn’s nom­i­na­tion as the new com­mis­sion­er of the FDA was de­liv­ered right on sched­ule Fri­day, with the clock tick­ing down on the No­vem­ber 1 dead­line Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump faced in find­ing a per­ma­nent re­place­ment for Scott Got­tlieb. The pend­ing news had be­come the worst kept se­cret in Wash­ing­ton. But the full mean­ing of the move is still un­de­ter­mined.

The Chief Med­ical Ex­ec­u­tive at MD An­der­son had a rep for steer­ing straight in­to con­fronta­tion, when the fu­ture of the in­sti­tu­tion was at stake. More prob­lem­at­ic, per­haps, will be his role in dis­miss­ing Chi­nese re­searchers at a time the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has been bear­ing down on the Asian gi­ant. Just how Hahn will man­age drug de­vel­op­ment, which is my pri­ma­ry are­na of in­ter­est, is go­ing to take some time to fig­ure out.

In­ter­im chief Ned Sharp­less was the clear in­sti­tu­tion­al fa­vorite for get­ting the job full time af­ter a stint at the NCI. Pa­tient groups loved him and the in­dus­try deeply re­spect­ed his ex­per­tise, even if he nev­er gen­er­at­ed the kind of en­thu­si­asm Scott Got­tlieb achieved at the agency’s helm as the first com­mis­sion­er with re­al celebri­ty sta­tus.

As the process to con­firm Dr. Hahn be­gins, I will re­turn to @theN­CI to re­sume my role as @NCIDi­rec­tor. I am con­fi­dent Dr. Hahn will pro­vide strong lead­er­ship for the FDA. https://t.co/3vc­syj7Pf4

— Dr. Ned Sharp­less (@FDA­Com­mis­sion­er) No­vem­ber 1, 2019

Hahn’s nom­i­na­tion, though, won’t trig­ger any ob­vi­ous back­lash in bio­phar­ma. As a re­spect­ed ex­ec­u­tive at MD An­der­son with a track record in re­search and a ca­reer in on­col­o­gy that ex­tend­ed back through a stint at the pres­ti­gious Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia’s Perel­man School of Med­i­cine, he’ll be ex­pect­ed to main­tain the gold stan­dard in drug de­vel­op­ment.

Mar­garet Foti, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of AACR, set the tone with a pre­pared com­ment for the oc­ca­sion:

Dr. Hahn, who is board cer­ti­fied in both ra­di­a­tion and med­ical on­col­o­gy, is es­teemed for the breadth and depth of his sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge and ex­per­tise, and he has con­sis­tent­ly ad­vo­cat­ed for a drug re­view process at the FDA that is both sci­ence-di­rect­ed and pa­tient-fo­cused.

The ques­tion is whether he’ll keep push­ing the en­ve­lope on greater reg­u­la­to­ry flex­i­bil­i­ty that has helped rev­o­lu­tion­ize can­cer drug de­vel­op­ment and changed the dy­nam­ics of R&D.

That’s some­thing no one seems to know much about. But they’ll get a chance to hear much more once the Sen­ate picks up the nom­i­na­tion.

It’s clear by now that biopharma experienced a massive boom in 2020, but a new report out Thursday says the Massachusetts hub was particularly successful.

The trade group MassBio released its latest industry snapshot, summarizing the last calendar year as the most successful for the Massachusetts biopharma sector. Overall, Massachusetts-based biotechs raised $5.8 billion in 2020, marking a hefty 93% increase from the previous year.

Gilead is chopping 179 jobs in its home state of California as it scales down its headquarters in favor of a hub in North Carolina.

Up to half of the roles would shift to Research Triangle Park, where the company is setting up a new business services and information technology center, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The precise number will depend on how many employees choose to relocate.

Per a WARN notice filed with the state, the layoffs are expected to be effective May 30.

CRLs. 483s. CBER, CDER and RWE. For biopharma professionals, these acronyms command attention because of the fundamental role FDA plays in drug development. Now Endpoints is doubling down on regulatory coverage, and launching a weekly report focusing on developments out of White Oak, with analysis and insight into what it all means.

Coverage will be led by our new senior editor, Zachary Brennan. He joins Endpoints from POLITICO, where he covered pharma. Prior to that he was the managing editor for Regulatory Focus, a news publication from the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society.