In September 2015, Robert Califf was nominated by President Barack Obama to be the next Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in February 2016.
According to his biography, Robert Califf is an American cardiologist who was granted tenure as professor of cardiology at Duke University School of Medicine. He was the founding director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, which is considered “the world’s largest academic research organization”, with 1000 employees and an annual budget of $320 million, 50-60% of which is funded from industry. His relationships with the pharmaceutical industry are described at length in his Wikipedia page.
“Califf worked very closely with pharmaceutical companies at the Duke clinical trials center “convincing them to do large, expensive, and, for Duke, profitable clinical trials.” He was a paid consultant for Merck Sharp & Dohme, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, and Eli Lilly per ProPublica from 2009 to 2013. The largest consulting payment was $87,500 by Johnson & Johnson in 2012, and “most of funds for travel or consulting under $5,000”, which has been called “minimal for a physician of his stature”. From 2013-2014 he was paid a total of $52,796, the highest amount was $6,450 from Merck Sharp & Dohme, followed by Amgen, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Daiichi Sankyo, Sanofi-Aventis, Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca. He was the Director of Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from July 2012 to January 26, 2015,[11] Advisor of Proventys, Inc., Chairman of the medical advisory board of Regado Biosciences, Inc. and has been member of the medical advisory board since June 2, 2009, and member of the clinical advisory board of Corgentech Inc. Forbes wrote that his close ties to the drug industry were the reason for him not being nominated for the FDA Commissioner position in 2009.”
'The Health Matrix' website. Possible source of good information
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