Bryant Godfrey, partner and Healthcare Department co-chair, spoke about the impact of changes at the FDA and Trump administration policies during J.P. Morgan Healthcare Week, citing the administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce as one of the biggest factors impacting the FDA in a conversation with FirstWord Pharma. 

“The biggest impact on the FDA is morale, because of the number of changes and people being dismissed," Godfrey told FirstWord. "People are leaving the FDA with sophisticated knowledge, and they are no longer there to help reviewers deal with tough calls. They are grappling with the loss of human capital."

He also highlighted the challenges that the industry is experiencing as a result of the administration’s policies aimed at bringing biomanufacturing back to the United States, noting that the policies may have the inverse impact: "There are policies being billed as America First, but how it's playing out is it's pushing companies out of the US. We need to remove the barriers for innovation here and make it easier for companies to do trials in the US, and take a second look at America First policies that have not actually encouraged companies to be America First," he said.

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