Gottlieb joins Pfizer’s board; faces political backlash

By PharmaCompass

2019-07-04

Impressions: 105 Article

Last week, there was news that former US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Scott Gottlieb has joined drug behemoth Pfizer’s board of directors. Gottlieb had resigned as FDA commissioner in March this year.

Within days of his taking up the job at Pfizer, there was political backlash. On Tuesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a democrat, called on Gottlieb to resign from Pfizer’s board of directors.

“This kind of revolving door influence-peddling smacks of corruption, and makes the American people rightly cynical and distrustful about whether high-level Trump administration officials are working for them, or for their future corporate employers,” Warren said in a letter to Gottlieb.

In a statement issued last week, Pfizer had said Gottlieb (age 47) joins its board of directors with immediate effect. According to a regulatory filing, Pfizer paid a minimum of US$ 335,000 in stock and cash in 2018 for the post. Gottlieb has also been appointed to the Regulatory and Compliance Committee and the Science and Technology Committee of Pfizer’s Board.

“You should rectify your mistake and immediately resign from your position as a Pfizer board member,” said Warren, who is running for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 US presidential polls.

However, Gottlieb has defended his decision. “I worked with some large drugmakers before I came into the agency,” he said, adding that his new role at Pfizer is bigger than anything he did before the FDA. “I made no bones about the fact that I had expertise in life sciences and I made my living trying to promote innovation in this sector prior to coming to the agency.”

There have been many former FDA commissioners who have joined the boards of life science and other industry companies, such as Scott McClellan (who joined the board of Johnson & Johnson and the insurer Cigna), Margaret Hamburg (who joined the board of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals) and Andrew von Eschenbach (who joined the board of Bausch Health).

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“ The article is based on the information available in public and which the author believes to be true. The author is not disseminating any information, which the author believes or knows, is confidential or in conflict with the privacy of any person. The views expressed or information supplied through this article is mere opinion and observation of the author. The author does not intend to defame, insult or, cause loss or damage to anyone, in any manner, through this article.”

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