FDA’s controversial vaccine chief will exit agency next month

By Sarah Owermohle, Adam Cancryn, CNN

(CNN) — The US Food and Drug Administration’s head of vaccines and biologic medicines will leave the agency at the end of April, a spokesperson confirmed to CNN on Friday.

Dr. Vinay Prasad, who joined the FDA in May, oversaw a series of vaccine decisions that attracted controversy, including a refusal last month to review a new flu vaccine using messenger RNA technology, made by Moderna. The agency later accepted the application with adjustments.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary has not made a decision on a replacement to lead the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, he said in a social media post Friday.

Prasad’s departure was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Prasad had previously left the agency in July, less than three months into the job, before rejoining weeks later. That departure came amid increasing pressure from White House allies including Laura Loomer, who accused the hematologist-oncologist of being politically aligned with liberals and expressing “disdain” for President Donald Trump.

More recently, CBER has been embroiled in controversy over requests for more trial data from a company, UniQure, developing a gene therapy for Huntington’s disease. In a rare move, officials convened a media call on Thursday to defend the FDA’s decision and attack critics.

As a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, Prasad was an early – and harsh – critic of the government’s Covid-19 response. He also criticized his predecessor in the FDA role, Dr. Peter Marks, for overseeing approvals of new medicines that Prasad argued were supported by thin evidence.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.