HHS In role
Michael Davis
Director, FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER)
Physician-scientist (M.D., Ph.D.) made permanent director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research on September 8, 2026, after serving as acting director since May 2026. He owns prescription and over-the-counter drug approvals and has made generic GLP-1 availability a stated top priority.
Role status — October 2026: Davis is the permanent director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), made permanent on September 8, 2026 after serving as acting director since May 2026.
Davis (M.D., Ph.D.) took the acting job in May 2026 after acting director Tracy Beth Høeg was removed, and held it through the summer before the appointment was made permanent in September — the same week his CBER counterpart Karim Mikhail was also made permanent.
CDER owns prescription and over-the-counter drug approvals, the largest regulatory pipeline in the FDA. Davis has put a marker down early: in remarks on September 23, 2026, he publicly made generic GLP-1 availability a top priority — a position that puts his center in the middle of the fight over the cost and supply of the blockbuster weight-loss drug class.
Why tracked here: Davis runs the drug-approval center, and his GLP-1 generics priority is one of the clearest stated agendas of any of the new FDA center directors.
Sources (Oct 2026): STAT, Sept. 8, 2026; RAPS, Sept. 23, 2026.