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She Didn’t Need To Be Commissioner: Janet Woodcock’s Transformative Legacy

 
• By Sarah Karlin-Smith

She is as polarizing as she is powerful, but whether you think Janet Woodcock is drug development’s hero or public health’s enemy, there’s no denying she dramatically transformed the US FDA over her 35-year career.

Woodcock legacy portrait. (Source: Nielsen Hobbs; the Pink Sheet | Images from Alamy, FDA, Shutterstock)
Janet Woodcock's smile might not be enigmatic, but her legacy is complicated. • Source: Nielsen Hobbs; the Pink Sheet | Images from Alamy, FDA, Shutterstock

After a 35-year career, Janet Woodcock is expected to wind down her time at the US Food and Drug Administration in 2022 having never held the agency’s most senior role – commissioner – permanently. But that hasn’t stopped her from being one of the most powerful forces in modern drug regulation, and in fact may have been what kept her so influential for such a long period of time.

Unlike a commissioner, Woodcock’s period of leadership wasn’t limited to a few years, and her other FDA posts came with the unique ability to make changes that

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