Obama fingers FDA as agency in need of overhaul

Will the FDA get an Obama-backed makeover? Before a panel meeting on jobs and competitiveness, the president said the FDA isn't up to speed on current technology, so it's not able and ready to handle current medical advances, the Financial Times reports.

The White House is in the midst of a push to bolster the economy, and President Obama has promised to review government regulation as part of that effort. At the panel meeting, Obama emphasized that regulations protecting safety should stick around, but redundant rules and unnecessary red tape should go. The industry lobby PhRMA has complained of "an overdose of regulations that imperils the future growth" of the industry.

As the FT reports, Obama highlighted the FDA as an agency that should be modernized. "I've gotten a lot of commentary about the fact that ... essentially their model was designed for the kind of medical devices you see in museums," the president said. "So that would be an area where [we should be] getting a group to think strategically about how ... [we design] these regulatory bodies so that they are up to speed and more responsive to a dynamic economy," he added.

- read the FT story