Maybe the Food and Drug Administration and its parent, the Department of Health and Human Services, didn’t get the memo about the Obama administration not being anti-business. Instead of trying to improve the FDA’s dismal performance — which has caused drug approvals to plummet while boosting the costs of drug development and the time required for clinical trials — regulators are ramping up efforts to intimidate and harass industry.
Last year DHHS announced it would go after drug company executives using an obscure Social Security Act administrative policy. If a company commits criminal misconduct, the provision allows the feds to bar corporate leaders from doing business with the government even if they had no knowledge of their firm’s criminal actions.
