Janet Woodcock, the longtime director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is set to take over the top spot of the regulatory agency on an interim basis following the presidential inauguration of Joe Biden.
Woodcock first joined the FDA in 1986 and has served in CDER since 1994 in a variety of leadership roles. For the past 10 months, Woodcock shifted her focus from regulatory approvals to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. In May 2020, she temporarily stepped away from her CDER duties to assist Operation Warp Speed and the federal government’s efforts to rapidly develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus.
