STAT+: Marty Makary, Trump nominee to lead FDA, pledges to avoid conflicts if confirmed
Marty Makary, President Trump’s pick to be FDA commissioner, promised to step down as an adviser to various health tech, medical device, and telehealth startups if confirmed.
WASHINGTON — Marty Makary, President Trump’s pick to be Food and Drug Administration commissioner, promised to step down as an adviser to various health tech, medical device, and telehealth startups if confirmed, and to sell off stock holdings in the companies as well, according to financial disclosures filed ahead of his confirmation hearing.
According to the disclosures, Makary does not hold stock in any large pharmaceutical companies, unlike some previous FDA commissioners, including the last individual to hold that office, Robert Califf. Makary’s financial ties include holdings in a telehealth company that sells compounded drugs, a clinical stage company developing drugs for tissue injury, and a medical device company focused on cataract surgery.
Makary pledged to sell those stocks if confirmed, and said he had already resigned from some advisory roles in a Feb. 24 letter to an ethics official at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA. He stepped down in December 2024 as a Covid-19 adviser to Texas grocery chain H-E-B, which paid him around $217,000 in 2024, and in June 2024 as a contributor to Fox News. He also promised to step down from his positions at Johns Hopkins University, where he is a pancreatic surgeon.
