High FDA staff turnover hits US drug approvals

A "brain drain" at the US Food and Drug Administration is contributing to the slow down in new drug approvals, according to a report by the Associated Press. Among the factors causing the problem are the large number of "baby-boomers" employed at the FDA who are nearing retirement age, the willingness of specialist consultancies to recruit the best agency staffers and the difficulty of hiring new people into a government department that is widely viewed as overstretched.

Since the early 1990s, the number of FDA staff has declined from 9,000 to 8,000 at a time when the number of functions added to the regulatory agency increased by over 100, according to the AP. In an attempt to overcome this issue, the FDA has launched a program to hire 2,000 scientists and physicians on a two-year fellowship. However, this scheme has no additional funding and medical students graduate with an average $130,000 debt.

Michael Ehlert, the American Medical Student Association's president, told the AP that, "if you look at the 20,000 medical students graduating each year, only a very small proportion would be interested in a career that leads to a government agency."