Former FDA Head Says Agency Holds Medicine Back

We're squandering "unbelievable" scientific possibilities.

A former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration who will help lead a discussion at Tufts University today says that the agency is holding back, rather than encouraging, the creation of groundbreaking new drugs.

Andrew von Eschenbach, commissioner of the FDA for more than two years until January 2009, said in an interview Friday that as a result of FDA demands, drug trials have become too large and expensive. He said the FDA has become too "risk-averse" at a time when scientists in the pharmaceutical industry are moving forward like never before.

"The business model is basically falling apart at a time when the scientific possibilities are unbelievable," he said.