Matthew Schrag

Well, let me give you an example in the Alzheimer's field that I think is very instructive.

The first of the anti-amyloid antibodies that was approved by FDA was a drug called aducanumab.

That's the scientific name.

The trade name was adjuhelm.

It's been withdrawn from the market.

The reason it was withdrawn is that it was dangerous and ineffective.

This drug was essentially the product of regulatory capture.

The guy who was overseeing the shepherding of it through the FDA, his name is Billy Dunn, was found in a journalistic investigation by the website Stat and then later by a monumental U.S.

Congress investigation to have been working hand in glove with the company that was promoting and trying to get the drug approved.

Billy Dunn left the FDA shortly after this episode.

And what did he do?

He took a big job as a member of the board of a biotech company that's developing Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease remedies.

There's many, many other examples.

And this has been described as a revolving door at the FDA.

This is one element of the Trump administration program that is being championed by Marty McCary,

who's the FDA commissioner, that I think is really smart, which is to try to reduce this revolving door phenomenon.

There's too many conflicts of interest in drug development.

So yes, I think that's a real problem that needs to be corrected.

Thanks for the question, Stephen.

I think about this a lot.