In the first six months of 2025, 385 employees resigned from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, compared with under 130 staff during the same period last year.
Hundreds of employees have resigned from the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research since the start of the year, exacerbating the staffing losses at the agency amid the ongoing overhaul of the health department.
According to recent hiring data from the FDA, 385 employees left CDER between January and June 30, while only 18 new employees joined the Center. At the same time last year, CDER had lost just under 130 employees, while it hired nearly 250 new staff. No hiring numbers are yet available for CDER’s sister department, the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER).
These CDER exits come as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. enacts his wholesale restructuring of the department. First announced in late March, this initiative will see some 10,000 roles eliminated across the agency, alongside a widescale consolidation of its divisions. The FDA, in particular, is set to lose some 3,500 posts.
In a case last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government, suspending an injunction from a California judge and allowing it to proceed with the reorganization of the HHS. Then, on Monday, HHS officially began the layoffs, sending out emails to terminated employees informing them that July 14 was their last day of employment with the agency.
The government itself estimates that HHS’ headcount will shrink by 20,000, a number that includes probationary staff who had been let go in February and those who accepted buyout offers to resign from their posts.
The department has also walked back hundreds of these layoffs in recent months, with Kennedy himself admitting that more than 2,000 employees had been let go by mistake. In May, for instance, the FDA brought back travel staff and some negotiators for the user fee program. Last month, the agency also reinstated its generic drug policy office. It is unclear whether the updated CDER hiring figures include these rehires.
The Trump administration’s overhaul of HHS has been met with strong pushback from many quarters. In addition to the recently reversed California decision, in May, a coalition of 19 states and the District of Columbia sued the department and its leaders, alleging that their restructuring initiative was “unconstitutional and illegal.” Rhode Island judge Melissa DuBose ruled in favor of the plaintiffs earlier this month, noting that “the executive branch does not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress.”
Professional organizations and unions have also spoken out against the HHS overhaul, as have Democratic lawmakers.
