After three months without a permanent leader in place, President Donald Trump has named his pick for the next commissioner of the FDA.
Heidi Overton, M.D., Ph.D., currently a White House aide, will go before the Senate in an effort to secure the job of the country’s top drug regulator. Trump confirmed his choice in a post on Truth Social today.
“Dr. Heidi has been a ROCKSTAR in my Administration, where she has worked directly with Secretary Kennedy, Dr. Oz, and team, to deliver on the MOST TRANSFORMATIVE Health Agenda in History,” the president wrote. “We need her leadership at the FDA now to ensure that the U.S. remains the WORLD LEADER for Scientific Discovery and CURES.”
Overton’s expected nomination was first reported by Bloomberg News yesterday and confirmed to Fierce by a person familiar with the situation this morning.
Overton received her medical degree from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and then went east for a doctorate in clinical investigation from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
She served as a White House fellow during Trump’s first term, and when he lost reelection in 2020 she pivoted to the America First Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank that was founded in 2021 by fellow Trump administration veterans. There, she directed the MAHA-aligned Center for a Healthy America and served as chief policy officer.
After Trump took back the White House in 2024, Overton rejoined him as deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Though she’s been rumored as a frontrunner for FDA leadership since former Commissioner Marty Makary, M.D., departed in May, Overton still needs to survive a grilling from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which is headed up by lame-duck Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, M.D.
Cassidy, himself a physician, held his nose to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary, and after losing his reelection primary to a Trump-backed candidate has become a potential sticking point for the administration’s nominees.
“I have seen her challenge assumptions, demand excellence, and turn bold ideas into meaningful results,” Kennedy said of Overton in a post on X. “At the FDA, she will make our food supply safer, modernize drug approvals, unleash American medical innovation, accelerate access to lifesaving treatments, bring greater transparency and accountability to the agency, and restore Gold Standard Science as the foundation of every decision.”
Since Makary's departure, the FDA has been led in the interim by Kyle Diamantas, who hails from the agency’s food regulation division. Under Diamantas, the agency has on the surface seemed more stable, reversing some controversial decisions while continuing to roll out reforms meant to speed up drug development.
Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:40pm E.T. with a statement from President Trump and Secretary Kennedy.