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Texas Doctor Stephen M. Hahn Is a Top Contender to Head FDA
M.D. Anderson’s radiation-oncology chief is among three leading candidates for post open since April

https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-doctor-stephen-m-hahn-is-a-top-contender-to-head-fda-11567635140

By Thomas M. Burton and Alex Leary https://www.wsj.com/news/author/8749
Updated Sept. 4, 2019 6:46 pm ET

Stephen M. Hahn, a senior executive and radiation oncologist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, has emerged as a leading candidate to be nominated by the Trump administration to become commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, according to people familiar with the matter.
Dr. Hahn, 59 years old, is chief of radiation oncology and chief medical executive at M.D. Anderson, a research and clinical hospital affiliated with the University of Texas. He didn’t respond to phone calls or an email seeking comment. One person familiar with the events said Dr. Hahn now is the leading contender.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that an unidentified M.D. Anderson physician was one of three leading contenders for the position. Also in the running are Norman E. “Ned” Sharpless, also an oncologist and currently the acting FDA commissioner; and Alexa Boer Kimball, a Harvard dermatology professor.
The White House declined to comment.
The senior post came open after former Commissioner Scott Gottlieb resigned in April.
Four other former FDA commissioners sent a letter to President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar this week, praising Dr. Sharpless and recommending they name a permanent FDA commissioner.
“He has gained the respect of the agency staff and a broad spectrum of the public in support of the FDA’s mission,” said the letter signed by the former commissioners: Drs. Robert M. Califf, Margaret Hamburg, Andrew von Eschenbach and Mark McClellan.
Dr. Sharpless, 52, was director of the National Cancer Institute when Mr. Azar named him to become acting FDA commissioner. He might have the option of returning to the cancer institute should he not become permanent FDA commissioner.
Before joining M.D. Anderson in 2014, Dr. Hahn was at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as a department chair and as a vice chair for research with the department of radiation oncology.
Earlier, he was a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute from 1989 to 1995, and until 1995 was chief of the prostate-cancer clinic at the cancer institute’s clinical pharmacology branch.
Theodore S. Lawrence, chair of radiation oncology at the University of Michigan, said Dr. Hahn is “a great guy with a great personality, very outgoing and very perceptive on both the medical side and the financial side.”
Dr. Hahn is board-certified in medical oncology and radiation oncology, Dr. Lawrence said.
Dr. Kimball, 50, has degrees from Princeton University and Yale University Medical School, served a dermatology residency at Stanford University and had a clinical research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. She has played a prominent role in several trials evaluating the safety of drugs for psoriasis.

—Alex Leary contributed to this article.
Write to Thomas M. Burton at [e-mail] and Alex Leary at [e-mail]