Stephen Hahn went be­fore a Sen­ate com­mit­tee Wednes­day and de­clared he’s fight­ing. “Every one of the de­ci­sions we have reached has been made by ca­reer FDA sci­en­tists based on sci­ence and da­ta, not pol­i­tics,” he ex­claimed, adding that “FDA will not per­mit any pres­sure from any­one to change that. I will fight for sci­ence.”

A few hours lat­er, he was un­der­mined by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump when a re­porter asked if he was okay with stricter vac­cine guide­lines that the FDA was said to be cook­ing up. “That has to be ap­proved by the White House. We may or may not ap­prove it. That sounds like a po­lit­i­cal move,” he de­cid­ed.

The re­marks set up an­oth­er crit­i­cal junc­ture for the agency and its be­lea­guered com­mis­sion­er, who has been work­ing over­time to bol­ster pub­lic con­fi­dence in the FDA and his lead­er­ship since Hahn’s dis­as­trous per­for­mance as­sist­ing the pres­i­dent tout false con­va­les­cent plas­ma fig­ures.

The pres­i­dent then ques­tioned the need to length­en the ap­proval time­line, fore­cast­ing “great re­sults” ahead and again fram­ing the FDA’s moves as po­lit­i­cal:

Be­cause when you have Pfiz­er, John­son and John­son, Mod­er­na, these great com­pa­nies com­ing up with the vac­cines and they’ve done test­ing and every­thing else. I’m say­ing, why would they have to be adding great length to the process.

It sound­ed to me, ex­treme­ly po­lit­i­cal. Why would they do this, when we come back with these great re­sults. And I think you will have those great re­sults.

The new FDA stan­dards re­port­ed­ly passed muster at HHS on Tues­day and there was an ex­pec­ta­tion that it would get a green light from the White House, ac­cord­ing to a Politi­co re­port that cites two sources fa­mil­iar with the time­line. Trump re­port­ed­ly spoke with HHS sec­re­tary Alex Azar be­fore the press con­fer­ence.

Un­der the new guid­ance, vac­cine de­vel­op­ers must fol­low at least half the par­tic­i­pants for 60 days fol­low­ing the sec­ond dose, as well as ac­crue five or more cas­es of se­vere Covid-19 in the place­bo group, be­fore they can seek an EUA.

It’s still pos­si­ble the new EUA rules are al­lowed to go in­to ef­fect by Trump. But for an agency ac­cus­tomed to bi­par­ti­san def­er­ence from its po­lit­i­cal su­pe­ri­ors, it’s now sail­ing in un­chart­ed wa­ters work­ing un­der a pres­i­dent who de­mands key de­ci­sions be rout­ed through a com­mand-and-con­trol struc­ture firm­ly con­trolled by him or trust­ed lieu­tenants. And by hav­ing Trump la­bel their work as “ex­treme­ly po­lit­i­cal,” it rais­es new ques­tions on what mes­sag­ing, if any, FDA lead­ers can em­ploy that would both sat­is­fy the pres­i­dent and the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty.

Trump be­gan Wednes­day’s press con­fer­ence by en­cour­ag­ing Amer­i­cans to en­roll in Covid-19 vac­cine tri­als, and then tout­ed some ques­tion­ably star­ry num­bers on treat­ments in the pipeline. “We are see­ing promis­ing re­sults that are mon­o­clon­al an­ti­bod­ies which help the im­mune sys­tem fight the virus,” Trump said, halt­ing­ly read­ing a script.

But the first ques­tion he took was on the peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er af­ter the elec­tion. He re­fused to com­mit to it.

For a look at all End­points News coro­n­avirus sto­ries, check out our spe­cial news chan­nel.

Zosano $ZSAN has officially come up short in its bid to develop a migraine patch.

The FDA rejected the company’s application to repurpose the triptan zolmitriptan in a new delivery system as Qtrypta, Zosano said Wednesday morning, issuing a CRL for the microneedle patch. Regulators cited inconsistent exposure levels across multiple clinical trials as the main reason for the thumbs down.

Investors did not take too kindly to the news, with Zosano shares plunking down around 25%. The company is requesting a Type A meeting to “provide clarity on the next steps for the program,” CEO Steven Lo said in a statement.

Four years after a Phase I/II setback in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), Novartis is hoping its drug branaplam will find more success in a new neurological indication: Huntington’s disease.

The decision was announced a year after the head of research, Jay Bradner, said he did not see a “big opportunity” in SMA, according to Reuters. Novartis says it has preclinical data showing that branaplam reduces levels of mutant huntingtin protein, and SMA data showing patients on the drug had reductions in huntingtin mRNA. The FDA gave branaplam their orphan drug designation, and Novartis plans to move forth with a Phase IIb trial next year.

One of GlaxoSmithKline’s big projects at its global vaccine R&D center in Rockville, MD is set to enter Phase III after passing early-stage tests with flying colors.

Eyeing the wide-open respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) space, GSK is pushing two different vaccine candidates: GSK3888550A is designed to confer protection to infants via maternal immunization, while GSK3844766A is meant for the elderly.

Purdue Pharma may soon be signing off on a guilty plea and an $8 million-plus settlement to wrap up its controversial role distributing OxyContin.

The AP has the breaking story this morning.

Purdue filed for bankruptcy last year, along with Insys and followed by Mallinckrodt, as it navigated its way through a blizzard of litigation surrounding Oxy, which triggered an epidemic of abuse around the country.