> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.fdaweb.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Hire Staff, Improve Morale, Cut INDs: Tidmarsh Goals
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/hire-staff-improve-morale-cut-inds-tidmarsh-goals/
- Published: 2025-10-30T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T15:25:23.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5160136

Speaking at the 10/27 Biotechnology Innovation Organization’s Patient Advocacy Changemaker’s Event, new CDER director **George Tidmarsh** said his immediate goals are to improve staff morale, hire additional reviewers, and reduce the number of Investigational New Drug (IND) applications by reforming the process. Tidmarsh [told](https://bio.news/bio-convention/pace-cder-director-talks-faster-approval-fda-morale-with-bio-ceo-john-f-crowley/?ref=fdaweb.com) attendees that FDA has authorization for 1,000 new reviewers. He said an exception granted to the agency to permit the new hires was very specific to reviewers, even though very few scientists were lost in the reductions in force that took place earlier this year.

“That’s very important,” he said, “because it does allow us to go directly to the major part of the workload that impacts your industry and the patient population and the advocacy groups.”

Tidmarsh says that when he first came to the agency about three months ago, it was obvious that a major need was to improve staff morale. “The message was clear that we need to reassure people, number one, that there weren’t going to be more reductions in force, any more layoffs,” he said. “And it was true, so it was easy to communicate. That began to reassure people that their jobs weren’t at risk, because that’s the most unsettling part of what happened…. Slowly but surely, people are focusing less on their job security and workload and more on that they’re happy to be here.”

Tidmarsh also reported moving quickly on drug approvals while maintaining the agency’s gold standard. He said he found that drugs going through the approval processes can often be exempted from IND by law. He said they’ve started a program to standardize across all review divisions and enforce the exemption criteria to reduce the number of INDs.

Other areas in which Tidmarsh reported progress were using novel approach methods instead of animal testing in toxicology reviews and finding better ways to use surrogate endpoints in accelerated approvals.

By ensuring that the most meaningful endpoints are used, he said, FDA can increase the number of accelerated approvals that ultimately succeed in confirmatory trials.

Asked for a big-picture answer to how drug development looks one or two years from now, Tidmarsh said, “It’s clear, it’s consistent, and it’s fast, but with the same high quality and guarantees that patients get safe and dependable medications.”