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# Looking at the FDA/Industry ‘Revolving Door’
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/looking-at-the-fda-industry-revolving-door/
- Published: 2022-08-03T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T17:54:35.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: FDA Policy/General, #legacy-id-D5152437

At least 2,700 ex-FDAers now work in the drug industry, while another 1,100 have come into the agency from industry. That’s the analysis developed by *Grid* based on information available from the Linkedin social media app.

*Grid* [says](https://www.grid.news/story/science/2022/08/03/an-fda-official-bolting-to-big-tobacco-shines-a-light-on-the-agencys-revolving-door-problem/?ref=fdaweb.com) it looked into the FDA/industry revolving door after **Matt Holman**, who headed the agency’s tobacco science office, left FDA to join Philip Morris International.

The article says agency watchdogs have raised ethics questions for decades, but there have been little hard data on how big the problem is.

In addition to the 2,700 former FDAers in the drug industry and 1,100 former industry people now at the agency, *Grid* says, it found that about 1,200 former employees now work in the biotechnology industry and more than 600 work in the medical device industry.

Public Citizen’s **Michael Carome** told *Grid* the numbers are interesting and not surprising. He said the Linkedin counts likely underestimate the number of agency employees who have jumped to the industries they once regulated, and don’t include industry figures who have moved to FDA, stayed briefly, and then returned to their home industry.

“Unfortunately, when you see somebody go from a regulating agency to the regulated industry, the public is naturally going to react like it’s a betrayal, because it does call into question your commitment to the mission of protecting the public,” said Project on Government Oversight ethics expert **Walter Shaub**. He said that while companies may honestly want the expertise of the people charged with regulating them, “the other thing is that they want to know the inside workings of FDA. They want to, or one might suspect they want to, create an atmosphere in which employees at FDA know that there’s a lucrative job waiting for them, potentially as long as they don’t really upset the regulated industry, right? I just think that’s human nature.”