Peter Rost for New FDA Commish?
Sometimes reality is stranger then fiction. The Pharmalot blog reported today that US Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, is nominating several candidates for the post and one of them is Peter Rost, MD!
For those of you who may not know Dr. Rost, he is a former Pfizer marketing executive who blew the whistle on some alleged marketing and sales violations at the drug maker. His court case is working its way up the judicial ladder and Dr. Rost apparently has the upper hand so far.
Pfizer fired Dr. Rost “for cause” after a raucous, public skirmish that went on for almost 2 years. After he left Pfizer, he wrote a book, worked for the Huffington Post and started his own blog, which currently has a post about his candidacy for the FDA Commissioner job.
I first met Peter when he was still at Pfizer and I was organizing a meeting on drug reimportation (he is an ardent supporter). He agreed to talk at the meeting but unfortunately the conference was canceled for one reason or another. I have no doubt that he has the medical credentials and business acumen to handle the job. The one thing that worries me is his penchant for self promotion—something that is not a desirable trait in an FDA Commissioner.
Time will tell. Personally, I would like to see Dr David Kessler come back and run the agency—another whistleblower (at UCSF) who ran the agency from 1990-1997 and did an outstanding job. The way things are going at FDA these days maybe being a whistleblower ought to be one of the requirement for the job!
Until next time…
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting
Bristol-Myers Squibb announced earlier today that its Board of Directors approved a deal to purchase ImClone for $4.5 billion. BMS already owns about 17% of ImClone’s shares and is ImClone’s US marketing partner for Erbitux, a monoclonal antibody treatment for colorectal and head and neck cancers. .jpg)
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