Call to Action: Endorsing Scott Gottlieb MD as Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration

Global Genes is joining the rare community to support Dr. Scott Gottlieb’s nomination to serve as Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We urge others to join our efforts.

The hearing will be live on Wednesday, April 5, 2017 at 10:00 AM at the following link:

Nomination of Scott Gottlieb, MD, to serve as Commissioner of Food and Drugs

Interested groups/individuals can send endorsement letters to the following staff electronically:

Chairman Alexander’s staff: Grace Stuntz, Deputy Health Policy Director, Senate HELP Committee: [email protected]
Ranking Member Murray’s staff:  Remy Brim, Senior Health Policy Advisor, Senate HELP Committee

Below is Global Genes’ letter to Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray. Please feel free to use the following format as a guide for your own letters.

________________________

The Honorable Lamar Alexander
455 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Patty Murray
154 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray,

On behalf of the 30 million Americans suffering from a rare disease, their caregivers, and those who are working to discover treatments and cures for rare diseases, we write today to strongly endorse Dr. Scott Gottlieb as the next Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and urge his speedy confirmation. The FDA is critical for advancing treatments for patients affected by rare diseases and we believe Dr. Gottlieb has the necessary skills, experience, knowledge and vision to not only lead the Agency, but to modernize it as well.

We are encouraged by Dr. Gottlieb’s remarks about addressing the workforce issues that continue to plague the agency, as well as his calls for a streamlined FDA approval process and the need for flexibility in review of rare disease therapies. We applaud Dr. Gottlieb’s well-documented position that FDA approval should account for the special circumstances surrounding rare diseases.

In addition, we also agree with many of Dr. Gottlieb’s thoughts about modernizing not only the drug review process, but also the drug development process. Specifically, we support greater use of biomarkers in developing novel treatments for rare diseases, which will expedite the drug development process for suffering patients.

We deeply respect Dr. Gottlieb’s extensive background, which covers the entire healthcare spectrum from physician to posts at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the FDA, to scholar and cancer survivor. We have great confidence that Dr. Gottlieb will lead the agency in a direction that will put patients first by modernizing and expediting the drug development and review process, while maintaining the FDA’s core safety and efficacy principles. We firmly believe he is a highly qualified candidate to lead the FDA and we enthusiastically endorse Dr. Gottlieb for FDA Commissioner.

Sincerely,

Nicole Boice
CEO Global Genes – Allies in RARE Disease