MAKARY’S RECORD — President-elect Donald Trump’s Friday night news dump of health care nominees included the expected naming of Dr. Marty Makary as his FDA commissioner pick. Your Prescription Pulse scribes have taken a deep dive into the Johns Hopkins surgeon’s record and employment history. We’ll get a fuller accounting after Makary is formally nominated next year and submits ethics paperwork. But here’s an early look: He’s a prolific author and researcher. Makary has written three books about health care — “Unaccountable,” about the lack of transparency in hospital care (and that might have inspired a TV show); “The Price We Pay,” chronicling ballooning health care costs; and, most recently, “Blind Spots,” examining instances where modern medicine has ultimately gotten the science wrong (think the addictive properties of opioids). A member of the National Academy of Medicine, Makary has published more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific papers, according to his official biography. He’s also a former editor-in-chief of MedPage Today. He has board memberships and other executive titles on his resume. Makary is a director on the board at Harrow, an ophthalmic pharmaceuticals company, and an adviser to Sidecar Health, an insurance provider that aims to lower customer costs by eliminating provider networks and drug formularies. He’s also chief medical adviser to Nava, a benefits brokerage, and chief medical officer at Sesame, a cash-pay health service market that offers compounded semaglutide, Stat reported over the weekend, raising questions about how Makary will approach the GLP-1 shortage brouhaha should he be confirmed. Sesame’s founder, David Goldhill, wrote a well-known piece in The Atlantic about his father’s death from a hospital-acquired infection that references a surgery checklist Makary helped develop to reduce errors and adverse events. He’s received mixed reviews from former health officials and scientists. Here are a few reactions we’ve gotten since Friday night’s announcement: “Well qualified,” texted Marc Scheineson, an FDA attorney at Alston & Bird who previously worked as associate commissioner for legislative affairs under former FDA Commissioner David Kessler. “Excellent experience conducting clinical trials (review is the core of FDA function); management experience at top health research university. Could have been way worse." Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who serves on the FDA’s independent vaccine advisory panel, said Makary’s recent defense of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine views on Fox News overshadowed his “reasonable criticisms” of pandemic-era policies. “You can’t then turn around and then in any way embrace RFK Jr.,” said Offit, who is concerned about RFK’s vaccine positions. IT’S TUESDAY. WELCOME BACK TO PRESCRIPTION PULSE. Can we extend Peach’s and Blossom’s pardons to ourselves, in the sense that we won’t have to work over the Thanksgiving holiday? We can only hope. Send tips to David Lim (dlim@politico.com or @davidalim) and Lauren Gardner (lgardner@politico.com or @Gardner_LM).
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