The Trump administration is considering Houman Hemmati, an ophthalmologist, entrepreneur and frequent Fox News guest, to serve as the nation’s next top regulator of vaccines and treatments for complex diseases, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.
If selected, Hemmati would replace Vinay Prasad, who is slated to leave the high-ranking position at the Food and Drug Administration at the end of April after a rocky year. Prasad had overseen controversial decisions about drugs and a new plan to tighten vaccine approvals, which drew condemnation from former agency leaders.
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary is said to favor Hemmati, two of the people said. A final decision has not been made, according to the three people.
Hemmati, if given the job, would arrive amid scrutiny from the White House on FDA operations. Concerns over the agency’s direction mounted late last year as leadership turned over, rattling the drug industry, which relies on a predictable FDA to understand what it needs to do to win approvals for new treatments.
Endpoints News first reported that Hemmati is under consideration. Hemmati did not return a request for comment.
The health department has been searching for a new head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research since last month. Makary praised Prasad in a social media post last month announcing that the University of California at San Francisco professor, hematologist and oncologist would be returning to his “academic home” after a one-year sabbatical.
“No decision has been made on the selection of the next CBER director,” Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement. “We continue to vet highly qualified candidates.”
Hemmati has served in various industry roles, including top medical positions at Optigo Biotherapeutics, which focuses on treatments for neovascular and degenerative retinal diseases, and Vyluma, a company developing eye drops. He has worked as an adjunct clinical assistant professor at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In 2023, he questioned why the federal government should be paying for more coronavirus vaccines. He praised a new approach to the coronavirus vaccine that Prasad and Makary outlined last year, which narrowed approval for updated shots to older adults and people with at least one health condition. In past years, shots had been broadly recommended, including to children and generally healthy adults.
“This is REAL science, not political science,” he wrote on X last year.
He has supported the administration’s decisions on a range of topics, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push for states to ban the purchases of soda and candy with food stamps and a new pathway aimed at speeding cures for ultrarare genetic diseases. In that same television clip, Hemmati said Americans at high risk of severe illness from influenza or want to ensure they’re protected should talk to their doctor about getting a vaccine.
“For many people, the flu shot actually can be very beneficial,” he said in January. “Why not go and consider that for those people who could potentially benefit from it.”
Hemmati’s outspoken skepticism of the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic helped win him fans, including Makary and then-Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya — who now hold senior roles in the Trump administration.
Hemmati, who has said he was forced to flee Iran with his family as a child, also has supported President Donald Trump’s efforts for regime change in the country, expressing support for the American military in a TV appearance last month and on social media.
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