I've been watching Califf for 30 years, since he was a junior faculty member at Duke. I have no idea what he'll actually do as FDA commissioner. But I'm pretty sure that he won't abandon the one consistent theme and obsession of his entire career: clinical trials. He didn't build the Duke Clinical Research Institute just to siphon money from industry, as some have argued. Instead he built an infrastructure to perform more, and better, clinical trials. I can't imagine Califf's commitment to clinical trials will now somehow be diminished.
So what does that suggest about what he'll do at the FDA?
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