Report: Von Eschenbach to get FDA nomination

Several sources are reporting that President Bush is expected to nominate Andrew von Eschenbach as the permanent head of the FDA, including a source in the administration, saying that the announcement was expected sometime in the next few days. Von Eschenbach has been the interim chief of the FDA since last September, just months after Lester Crawford had been given the official title. Crawford's abrupt departure has never been fully explained.

Von Eschenbach had to give up his day-to-day duties as head of the National Cancer Institute to take the interim post at the FDA. Industry leaders have been repeatedly calling for a permanent chief to manage the agency and set its course. Von Eschenbach has been an enthusiastic advocate of personalized medicine, the development of targeted therapeutics that can address an individual's ailments. The movement toward personalized medicine will require a much greater focus on pharmacogenomics and data that indicates which subsets of a population are most likely to benefit from a drug.

- here's The Wall Stret Journal report (sub. req.)