New FDA chief wants to help transform medical treatment

WASHINGTON -- The new acting chief of the Food and Drug Administration says he will be presiding over a transformation in medicine as scientists come to understand diseases in a more detailed way that could improve doctors' ability to treat patients.

Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, tapped by President Bush as the temporary chief of the regulatory agency, said Sunday that discoveries about diseases at "a molecular level" will lead to a new kind of health care.

Now, doctors treat illnesses based on how well other people have responded to a given treatment. Soon, they will develop a tailored response built around specific understandings of the patient, the treatment and the disease, he said.

"We are discovering so much about diseases like cancer at the molecular level," said von Eschenbach.

Preparing the FDA for this transformation is among his goals, von Eschenbach said.

Von Eschenbach said he will remain chief of the National Cancer Institute, the government's lead agency in researching cancer treatments, while running the FDA.

He replaces commissioner Lester Crawford. Crawford's surprise resignation, submitted Friday and effective immediately, gave no specific reason for his departure. His tenure was marked by growing criticism that the agency had become more interested in politics or benefiting drug companies than in its mission to protect consumers.

The new FDA chief has a reputation for optimism. His stated goal of eliminating suffering and death due to cancer, turning it into a manageable disease, by 2015 is regarded as ambitious by some and unlikely by others.

He has seen cancer from both sides, having survived three diagnoses: melanoma, prostate cancer and basal cell carcinoma.

Von Eschenbach also discussed the perpetual challenge for the agency: speeding new treatments to the market while ensuring they are safe. Sometimes those values are in conflict, as pressure from drug companies and patients to make new treatments available run up against incomplete or ambiguous safety data.

"I believe very strongly that science has to drive and is the driver of our knowledge and our understanding, and therefore of our decisions," he said. "Where science is incomplete, we continue to believe that under any circumstances, do no harm."

But with new treatments, von Eschenbach said: "I believe it's still important to ask the question, "How can we accelerate the timeline? How can we make certain we are getting these interventions to the patients as quickly as possible?"

The Philadelphia native served as chief academic officer of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston prior to taking over the National Cancer Institute in 2002.

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On the Net:

Food and Drug Administration: http://www.fda.gov

National Cancer Institute: http://www.cancer.gov/