4 November 2019 - Deborah Wilkes
President Donald Trump has nominated cancer specialist Stephen Hahn to be commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Hahn has been chief medical executive at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) since May 2018.
He is also the Gilbert H Fletcher Memorial Distinguished Chair and Professor of Radiation Oncology at MDACC.
A statement from the White House said MDACC was a research-driven patient care organisation that has approximately 21,000 employees, an annual revenue of USD5 billion and the largest number of clinical trials in the US.
Hahn is a radiation oncologist who specialises in treating lung cancer and sarcoma. He has authored 220 peer-reviewed original research articles.
From 1996-2014, Hahn was at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was Henry K Pancoast Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology from 2005-2014.
From 1989-1996, Hahn was a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Ned Sharpless, who has been acting FDA commissioner since the departure of Scott Gottlieb (click here to read the News story), is returning to his previous role of director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
The US Federal Vacancies Reform Act requires that a person may not serve in an acting capacity for longer than 210 days. Sharpless has been acting FDA commissioner for 210 days.