NYT: Eli Lilly Chief Says He Will Fight for the F.D.A., Challenging Kennedy's Stance

[Dennis Donovan]

NYT - Eli Lilly Chief Says He Will Fight for the F.D.A., Challenging Kennedy’s Stance

The health care giant’s David Ricks defended the agency’s role in reviewing data and ensuring drug safety.



By Aimee Ortiz
Dec. 4, 2024, 4:21 p.m. ET

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic with no medical or public health training, to be the next health secretary has sent a chill through the American public health sphere.

Among drugmakers, there are already signs of pushback.

David Ricks, the chair and chief executive of Eli Lilly, speaking at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit, said his $750 billion company would fight to defend preserving the Food and Drug Administration as it stands today.

“We’re the only country on Earth that does primary data review,” Mr. Ricks said, explaining that “when the company creates data, only the F.D.A. reviews every digit of that data.”

“I think that’s a value to society we need to keep,” he said. “We’ll argue that strongly with our new regulator.”

Mr. Kennedy posted his plans for the F.D.A. on social media in late October, days before President-elect Trump’s Election Day win and his subsequent nomination of Mr. Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

/snip

[Mike 03]

1. Any pushback is good pushback

My rec doesn't mean I love Eli Lilly or 100% trust its CEO.

[rich7862]

2. Totally understood, the foe of my foe can be an ally even with our corrupt medical programs.

[Dennis Donovan]

4. Yeah, as I was posting the OP, I couldn't help but to think "I'm on this guy's side."

...and he's Big Pharma!

[BeyondGeography]

3. Wow, sanity

Almost didn’t recognize it.

[WarGamer]

5. Backfire... if the Pharma guys don't like him...

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Data and testing is a system developed over many decades

probably 60-70 years on this evolving method.

FDA and Clinical Drug Trials: A Short History

https://www.fda.gov/media/110437/download

The 60 day approval "default" under the 1938 Act was removed. New drugs had to have positive and specific, and increasingly detailed approval from FDA to go to market and FDA was given the authority to set standards for every stage of drug testing from laboratory to clinic.

Milestones in U.S. Food and Drug Law

https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-history/milestones-us-food-and-drug-law

1800-1899: FDA Milestones
1820 Eleven physicians meet in Washington, D.C., to establish the U.S. Pharmacopeia, the first compendium of standard drugs for the United States.
1848 Drug Importation Act passed by Congress requires U.S. Customs Service inspection to stop entry of adulterated drugs from overseas.
1862
Charles M Wetherill

President Lincoln appoints a chemist, Charles M. Wetherill, to serve in the new Department of Agriculture. This was the beginning of the Bureau of Chemistry, the predecessor of the Food and Drug Administration.
1880 Peter Collier, chief chemist, U.S. Department of Agriculture, recommends passage of a national food and drug law, following his own food adulteration investigations. The bill was defeated, but during the next 25 years more than 100 food and drug bills were introduced in Congress.

[erronis]

7. Otherwise: They already know how to play this system. If they need to start paying bribes to rfk-jr

then it makes their lives harder.

Might as well be in a third-rate country..... Oh, wait.

[groundloop]

8. There's a lot I dislike about the FDA and big pharma, but that can all sit on the back burner for 4 years.

For the time being we can take all the help we can get to dampen the orange clown's effects on American society.

[Karasu]

9. Where the fuck is all the opposition to Kennedy's nomination compared to Hegseth?

Both are equally unqualified (a prerequisite for this administration), and both are sex predators. Hell, Kennedy should have at LEAST as much, considering how absurd his views on science and health are...but of course, the GOP is fucking trash.

It is completely insane to me that for some reason he's been given a fucking pass and everyone is just treating his appointment as an inevitability.

[TBF]

10. Ha - knew this would happen.

The pharma industry is not letting go easily.

[Seeking Serenity]

11. Eh, I still have a BIG problem defending Big effing Pharma

After years and years of cussing them. Big Pharma, like Big Food, Big Oil, Big Banking, etc, etc, is not your friend.

Sorry not sorry.