Brainstorm Health: FDA Commissioner Gottlieb to Resign, HIV Stem Cell Transplant, Vaccine Testimony

Good afternoon, readers.An earthquake rumbled across the health industry Tuesday as Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar confirmed reports that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has handed in his resignation, effective one month from now.Some viewed Gottlieb with skepticism when he was first tapped for the job, given his previous financial interests in a number of health care firms. That was a notable change from former FDA chiefs, and for a highly technical, traditionally hush-hush agency.Gottlieb’s pet projects at the FDA included expediting generic drug approvals in an effort to fight higher costs, creating new frameworks for getting digital health technologies and cellular and genetic therapies to market, and cracking down on the e-cigarette and tobacco industries.“Scott’s leadership inspired historic results from the FDA team, which delivered record approvals of both innovative treatments and affordable generic drugs, while advancing important policies to confront opioid addiction, tobacco and youth e-cigarettes use, chronic disease, and more,” wrote Azar in a tweet.Those moves prompted their own criticisms.