Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay, who stepped into the role as the agency’s top drug regulator in January, is departing in July, according to an email sent to agency staff.
The FDA is losing another top regulator amid the ongoing exodus of agency leaders and staffers under the Trump administration. Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay, the acting head of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, told employees via email that she is retiring from the agency in July, according to reporting from STAT News and Endpoints.
Corrigan-Curay, formerly a practicing internist, has been at the FDA for about nine years, first as the director of CDER’s Office of Medical Policy before moving to become the principal deputy director at CDER itself. CDER is the nation’s main drug reviewer, covering most non-biologic drugs. She took up the acting director position when the previous chief, Patricia Cavazzoni, left on January 18, just two days before Donald Trump’s second term in office started.
Corrigan-Curay said in her email to FDA staffers that she would stay on “for several more weeks to ensure a smooth transition,” Endpoints reported. She also wrote that the decision to leave had been “incredibly challenging” due to her colleagues’ “unwavering support, especially during recent challenging times.” Corrigan-Curay had a previous eight year stint at the NIH, serving in a variety of positions culminating in becoming director of the agency’s Office of Biotechnology Activities.
The news of her FDA departure comes just days after Nicole Verdun, the chief reviewer of cell and gene therapies at CDER’s sister department CBER, was pushed out of the agency and placed on leave. Rumors circulated that her boss, CBER head Vinay Prasad, was “consolidating power.” Verdun’s deputy, Rachael Anatol, was also placed on leave.
CBER’s deputy director, Celia Witten, left in February of this year, before then-CBER director Peter Marks was let go. Marks was replaced by Prasad.
All told, more than half of senior FDA officials have left the agency in the past six months—of their own accord or otherwise. In addition to Marks, Peter Stein was also ousted from his role as director of CDER’s Office of New Drugs (OND). He told BioPharma Dive months ago that the planned HHS layoffs did not initially include CDER or OND leadership.
