FDA Accelerates Hiring, Plans to Add Over 2,000 Employees

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving ahead with a major recruitment effort after receiving approval to hire 2,200 employees. The announcement was made by acting FDA Chief of Staff Lowell Zeta during the BIO International Convention in San Diego.

According to Zeta, around 600 recruits are currently going through onboarding, while several hundred have already begun working at the agency. The hiring initiative follows workforce reductions carried out last year as part of broader changes to federal public health agencies.

FDA officials said the agency is seeing strong interest from job seekers. Karim Mikhail, acting director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, noted that application volumes have been significant and that efforts are underway to retain existing staff members. Some employees are also being temporarily reassigned to departments with greater workloads.

Michael Davis, acting director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said employee turnover has returned to historical levels and that workplace morale has shown signs of improvement.

Agency leaders also highlighted ongoing efforts to incorporate patient perspectives more closely into the drug review process, especially for treatments targeting rare diseases and very small patient groups.