Innovation is not the first word that comes to most people’s minds when they think of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Frank Torti can offer perspectives from both outside and inside the agency. Torti said that as director of Wake Forest University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, he saw the university’s technology transfer office trying to figure out how to get small molecule drugs through the FDA’s regulatory process. But in his own stint as the FDA’s chief scientist, Torti saw firsthand the challenges of regulating industries that have grown in complexity and global reach — growth that stretches the agency’s resources across international borders.
