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# Drug Promotion Leaders Leave Agency
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/drug-promotion-leaders-leave-agency/
- Published: 2025-04-22T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T15:09:57.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: FDA Policy/General, #legacy-id-D5159045

FDA Office of Prescription Drug Promotion (OPDP) director **Catherine Gray** and deputy director **Mark Askine** have resigned after losing most their staff to Trump Administration reductions in force earlier this month, according to Politico’s AgencyIQ. HHS secretary **Robert F. Kennedy Jr.** , who is not a fan of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, previously recommended a ban on such promotional activities. Agency IQ says that more restrictive enforcement approaches could be on the horizon if FDA fills the two just-vacant posts with advertising hardliners.

At an FDLI conference in December, a panel of FDA watchers said they believed the Trump administration was likely to increase FDA enforcement of regulations governing DTC promotions ([see earlier story](https://www.fdaweb.com/dtc-ad-enforcement-to-increase-under-trump-panel/)). DTC advertising was legalized in 1985, when the agency decided it had no alternative under the First Amendment but to do so. Commenting on Kennedy’s opposition to DTC advertising, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius partner **Jacqueline Berman** said companies should have a strong promotional review committee process in place now. “Companies should definitely make sure that their substantiation for \[promotional\] statements are strong, that they’re supported by the evidence and they’re supported by a study because I think that’s one area that we probably may see some more enforcement than we have had in the last administration,” she warned.

Berman noted FDA’s past trajectory of enforcement around advertising and promotional activities has been focused on “digging very deeply into the data and seeing if it's substantiated. And I think we’ll continue to see that in more traditional promotional enforcement, and I think we’ll continue we’ll see that in the DTC space, especially with some of the statements that tend to be made in DTC ads just to make them consumer-friendly and that there’s going to be much higher scrutiny of those.”

Former FDA deputy chief of staff (under **Robert Califf** and **Scott Gottlieb**) and now-principal of consultant group Eliquent Life Sciences **Kalah Auchincloss** noted that opposing DTC advertising would be an unusual position for RFK Jr. to take in a Republican administration, and so there could be some tension on this from industry. Berman, however, noted that the political appointees being selected are not as industry-friendly as in the prior Trump administration, and “so I think that just the whole way of approaching the agency is probably going to change.”

Asked to comment on the recent departures at OPDP, an HHS official said, “The FDA and HHS are committed to developing new guidelines for the industry on how they market drug risks and side effects, so the American people can make informed choices about their health through radical transparency. Critical programs within the FDA will continue as part of HHS’ transformation to better serve the American people.”