President Donald Trump has nominated Dr. Heidi Overton, M.D., currently Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, to serve as the next Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Her nomination would go to the US Senate for consideration for confirmation. The announcement was made via a social media post by the President. 

If confirmed, Overton would be the fourth commissioner of FDA since the current Administration took office in January 2025. She would succeed Kyle Diamantas, a lawyer by training, who has served as Acting Commissioner of FDA since May 2026 and who formerly was Deputy Commissioner for Food at FDA, where he oversaw FDA’s nutrition and food safety activities, prior to assuming the role of Acting FDA Commissioner. He took over from Dr. Marty Makary, M.D., who served as FDA Commissioner from April 2025 to May 2026. Dr. Makary became FDA Commissioner in April 2025 succeeding Robert M. Califf, M.D., who was appointed under the previous Administration by President Joe Biden and served from February 2022 to January 20, 2025, returning to FDA after previously serving as FDA Commissioner from February 2016 to January 2017. 

Dr. Overton is a board-certified physician, was a general surgery resident at Johns Hopkins University, and served as a White House fellow from 2019 to 2020 in both the Office of American Innovation and the Domestic Policy Council. She served as Vice Chair for the Center for a Healthy America and as Chief Policy Officer during her tenure at the America First Policy Institute, a non-profit research institute. In 2025, she joined the White House Domestic Policy Council as its Deputy Director.  

The executive changes at FDA have occurred not only on the Commissioner level, but there also has been several changes since January 2025 in the two centers with regulatory oversight over the bio/pharmaceutical industry: the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), which regulates blood products, vaccines, allergenics, tissues, and cellular and gene therapies, and the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), which regulates prescription drugs, both innovator drugs and generic drugs and biosimilars, and over-the-counter drugs. 

The most recent change occurred in May (May 2026) with Karim Mikhail, B. Pharm, MSc, becoming Acting Director of CBER. He joined FDA in 2025 as a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Commissioner, where he led US competitiveness reforms, spanning multiple disciplines from accelerating early clinical development to onshoring of bio/pharmaceutical manufacturing. He succeeded Vinay Prasad, M.D., formerly CBER’s Director, who stepped down for the second time having temporarily leaving the post in July 2025. 

For CDER, since January 2025, there have been six changes in the head of CDER. The most recent change occurred in May (May 2026) with Michael Davis, M.D., Ph.D., formerly Deputy Center Director of CDER, becoming the Acting Center Director for CDER. He succeeded Beth Høeg, M.D., Ph.D., was who named Acting Director of CDER in December 2025 and who left that post in May 2026. She joined FDA in March 2025, first as a Special Assistant and then as Senior Advisor for Clinical Sciences to FDA Commissioner Makary. She had taken over from Richard Prazur, who was named CDER Director in November 2025 and served as CDER Director for a single month. He had taken over from Dr. George Tidmarsh, M.D., Ph.D., who was CDER Director for only a few months having been appointed in July 2025 and leaving the post in November 2025. He had taken over from Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay, M.D., who served as CDER’s Acting Director from January to July 2025 after its former head, Patrizia Cavazzoni, M.D., stepped down earlier in January 2025. Cavazzoni served as Director of CDER from April 2021 to January 2025. 

Source: FDA