Azar’s memo & biotech’s deals: a BioCentury podcast

A controversy over a memo from HHS Secretary Alex Azar has further exposed the fraught atmosphere in Washington over claims that FDA and other agencies have been politicized amid the global pandemic. In the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury editors discuss the implications of Azar’s memo as well as insiders’ takes on the secretary’s intentions, which the agency maintains is routine administrative action. The editors also discuss the financing environment for early-stage biotechs as well as Illumina’s move to acquire cancer detection company Grail.

Washington Editor Steve Usdin says former leaders from HHS and its agencies from Republican and Democratic administrations expressed disbelief to BioCentury that HHS is motivated by purely administrative motives. Citing sources familiar with the matter, Usdin says the former officials view the memo as an extraordinary exercise of bureaucratic power that, at a minimum, is intended to send a signal that Azar can take actions that are usually taken by agency heads, and as a possible a prelude to a broad assertion of centralized power (see “Controversy Over Azar Memo”)...