Drug Fix: US FDA Commissioner Nominee Heidi Overton’s Resume And COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Changes

First up is Heidi Overton, who has been nominated for FDA Commissioner.

The White House domestic policy advisor filed some of, uh, the financial disclosure paperwork necessary for Senate confirmation.

Maisha, you took a deep dive into this.

What did you find out about her background?

Yeah.

So, mm, we took a look at her, um, financial, uh, disclosure, like, as a White House official.

So she reported, like, total assets of between hundred and sixteen thousand to three hundred and fifteen thousand, but the interesting part was that she had no pharmaceutical holdings and no healthcare company equity of any kind.

So, so that's...

That stood out to be, um, interesting and quite unusual if we compare her to the p- , um, previous FD commissioners like McCary or who, um, had, um, stocks, stockholding in a telehealth company, um, and also Robert Califf, um, who, um, came to the agency with, like, a net worth of nine million.

Um, so, um, so that was an interesting finding, uh, from her financial disclo-- current fi-financial disclosure that she has.

But I don't know if there is going to be more that she has to file if she's, um, if there is a confirmation hearing coming up.

That's something I'm also curious about.

Is, is it all that she has, or there is something more that we will see?

Well, there's usually a huge hunk of paperwork that comes with ... that the health, the Senate Health Committee will, um, will demand that, um, I don't know if it's more or i-it's probably more extensive than what she had to file just as a, an employee at the White House.

But, um, one of, one of the things I wanted to talk about was, you know, the at least th-this issue that you brought up, which is her, at least as far as we know, her lack of connection to the pharma industry, which is, you know, like you said, it, this has been an issue with several commissioners.

It's been a big criticism, uh, from a lot of stakeholders who I'm sure our listeners could probably guess were making them, um, as these confirmation hearings occurred, even though they were kind of, they, you know, they were ...

They viewed as issues, and they got questions about them, but it wasn't any kind of a deal breaker or anything like that for any of them.

Um, but, you know, with ...

Uh, I guess I'm curious how, what you all think of, you know, how industry will c- you know, I mean, we're thinking she's g- you know, if we believe she will be confirmed at some point, um, you know, how, how would industry kind of either, you know, want to deal with her, or maybe how should they deal with her? Um, you know, I'm not gonna imply that industry experience is, you know, necessarily leads to smooth FDA leadership.

We've certainly seen the opposite of that before.

Um, but, uh, I'm curious how you think industry will, you know, e- this for no other reason than just to be able to get business done at the agency, how, how they would react or how they would, you know, approach someone who's really not been a kind of a industry person.

Yeah.

B- I, I can go first o-on this.

I, I, I was thinking about this too, like, um, because it seems like...

So there was a part where when we also reported that she started her surgical, uh, residency at Johns Hopkins, but then, um, a White House official told us that she departed when she was selected for the White House Fellowship Program.