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# Lawsuit Against Tidmarsh Paints Troubling Picture
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/lawsuit-against-tidmarsh-paints-troubling-picture/
- Published: 2025-11-03T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T15:25:39.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5160151

Aurinia Pharmaceuticals’ lawsuit against CDER director **George Tidmarsh** includes screenshots of troubling text messages and emails from Tidmarsh to **Kevin Tang**, a biotech investor who chairs Aurinia’s board and heads Tang Capital Partners, the company’s largest investor. Tidmarsh resigned on Sunday, the day the lawsuit was filed in Maryland District Court. According to the complaint, Aurinia is seeking undetermined compensatory and punitive damages caused by Tidmarsh’s false and defamatory statements about the company and its lupus nephritis therapy Lupkynis (voclosporin).

The [32-page complaint ](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71855921/1/aurinia-pharmaceuticals-inc-v-tidmarsh/?ref=fdaweb.com)claims that Tidmarsh “abused his power” as CDER director to retaliate against Tang. The lawsuit traces an alleged feud back to 2019, when Tang — then chair of La Jolla Pharmaceutical Co. — asked Tidmarsh to resign as president and CEO over “growing concerns” about his management. According to the filing, Tang also sought his resignation from other Tang-affiliated companies, including American Laboratories Holdings and Odonate Therapeutics.

Aurinia’s complaint says Tidmarsh spent the next several years threatening revenge in texts and emails, writing that Tang would “be exposed” and that “the pain is not over.” After Tidmarsh’s appointment to head CDER in July, the company alleges he used the agency’s enforcement power to target Tang-linked firms. The complaint points to FDA’s decision soon after his arrival to “effectively remove” desiccated thyroid extract (DTE) products from the market — long a mainstay for patients with hypothyroidism and a key product for American Laboratories, another Tang-chaired company.

Days after the agency’s DTE action, the complaint says Tidmarsh’s personal attorney contacted Tang seeking a 10-year extension of an existing agreement that would have funneled payments to a Tidmarsh-controlled entity — an overture the plaintiffs describe as a “thinly veiled attempt to solicit a bribe.”

Aurinia says the FDA official then turned his attention to the company itself. In September, Tidmarsh posted on his personal LinkedIn page that Aurinia’s Lupkynis “has not been shown to provide a direct clinical benefit for patients” and that the firm failed to perform the necessary confirmatory trials. The post—quickly deleted—sent Aurinia’s shares tumbling more than 20% in a single day, erasing an estimated $350 million in market value, the complaint says.

Aurinia contends that Tidmarsh’s statements were “baseless” and contradicted the FDA’s own scientific findings. Lupkynis received full FDA approval in 2021, not the conditional “accelerated” approval that requires further confirmation of benefit. FDA reviewers at the time concluded that voclosporin produced a “clinically meaningful benefit” for lupus nephritis patients when added to standard therapy.

The company argues that Tidmarsh’s statements sowed confusion among physicians and patients who rely on Lupkynis, a treatment for a progressive and potentially debilitating kidney disease. Interrupting therapy, Aurinia says, could “accelerate kidney damage and health deterioration in patients with lupus nephritis.”

“The fact that someone entrusted with protecting public health would place his own personal vengeance above the safety of vulnerable patient populations is shameful,” the complaint states.