Departing FDA chief Scott Gottlieb heads to American Enterprise Institute

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who resigned last month from the top post at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is heading back to the American Enterprise Institute to work on drug pricing.

The Washington Post first reported the story on Thursday. Gottlieb will leave the agency on Friday.

AEI’s Director of Economic Policy Studies Michael Strain confirmed it via Twitter where he wrote that he and his colleagues are “thrilled” that Gottlieb is “coming home” to the Washington think tank. Gottlieb first went to AEI as a resident fellow in 2003.

Through his work as FDA commissioner, Gottlieb secured widespread praise from Republicans and Democrats alike — a rarity for a top official in the Trump administration.

As commissioner, he sped up approvals of generic drugs and pushed for transparency measures. Both are noncontroversial approaches to high pharmaceutical costs, and so far this year Congress is following suit with similar measures for the expected legislative package.

AEI is well respected in policy circles and advises Congress on the administration on major policies. Experts of the think tank have been critical of one of the Trump administration’s boldest ideas to drive down drug prices: the proposed demonstration to set an international reference price model for Medicare Part B.

Last week AEI’s James Capretta published an op-ed in Real Clear Politics to counter the proposal.

” Drug companies see the U.S. as their most important market because it is critical to reaching their global revenue goals,” Capretta wrote. “A U.S.-based (international reference pricing) scheme is more likely to lead to delays in product launches elsewhere, and to more creative price evasion schemes, than to lower prices for U.S. consumers or taxpayers.”

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/people/departing-fda-commissioner-scott-gottlieb-heads-aei