Regulatory News In Brief

FDA guard change: Acting FDA Commissioner Frank Torti will leave the agency April 4 to return to Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and incoming principal deputy commissioner-pick Joshua Sharfstein will assume the acting commissioner role on March 30, FDA staffers were informed in a March 27 memo. Torti joined FDA in May 2008 as the agency's first chief scientist and has served as acting commissioner since Andrew von Eschenbach left FDA on Jan. 20. Torti will resume his former role at Wake Forest as chair of the department of cancer biology and director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center; he also will assume the new role of VP-strategic programs. Sharfstein, who does not need Senate confirmation to take the deputy job, will be acting commissioner until confirmation of commissioner nominee Margaret Hamburg (1"The Gray Sheet" March 23, 2009, p. 3)