Scott Gottlieb's industry ties are likely to be a focus of his April 5 Senate confirmation hearing to be US FDA commissioner, but they seem unlikely derail his confirmation, and even the recusals he'll take once he joins the agency probably won't have much of an impact on his activities. However, the perception of potential bias could create a public relations problem, especially if widespread belief that FDA is unduly relaxing its regulatory requirements surfaces.
In interviews, several former senior FDA officials said that, in practice, Gottlieb will rarely run into a situation where he...
