Who is Scott Gottlieb? Former FDA commissioner says Covid pandemic could be over in the US by JANUARY

Who is Scott Gottlieb? – The former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) believes the COVID-19 pandemic could end by the beginning of next year.

In an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Friday, Dr Scott Gottlieb said America is about to gain new tools to fight the disease in the form of antiviral pills from Pfizer Inc and Merck & Co.

Gottlieb said recent Covid vaccine mandates implemented by President Joe Biden in workplaces may not even be necessary by the time they go into effect.

Starting January 4, the mandate requires all companies with at least 100 employees to test weekly those who aren’t fully vaccinated.

‘These mandates that are going to be put in place by January 4 really are coming on the tail end of this pandemic,’ Gottlieb told host Joe Kernen.

‘By January 4, this pandemic may well be over, at least as it relates to the United States after we get through this Delta wave of infection. And we’ll be in a more endemic phase of this virus.’

 

Who is Scott Gottlieb? Former FDA commissioner

Scott Gottlieb (born June 11, 1972) is an American physician and investor who served as the 23rd Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 2017 until April 2019.

He is presently a senior fellow at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a partner at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA), a member of the board of directors of drugmaker Pfizer, Inc, a member of the board of directors of Illumina, Inc., a contributor to the cable financial news network CNBC, and a frequent guest on the CBS News program Face the Nation.

He is the author of The New York Times best-selling book Uncontrolled Spread on the COVID-19 pandemic and the national security vulnerabilities that it revealed.

Prior to serving as Commissioner, Dr. Gottlieb held several roles in the public and private sectors including serving as Managing Director, T.R. Winston & Company from 2013 to 2017. Dr. Gottlieb was previously the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Medical and Scientific Affairs from 2005 to 2007, as well as the senior advisor to the FDA Commissioner from 2003 to 2004. He had been a senior advisor to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2004.

Dr. Gottlieb is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and is a Contributor to the financial news network, CNBC. Director Illumina, Inc., Director of Aetion, Inc. a private healthcare data technology company and Tempus, a private technology company. Pfizer Director since 2019. Chair of our Regulatory and Compliance Committee and Member of our Science and Technology Committee.

Says Covid pandemic could be over in the US by JANUARY

Gottlieb said two recent pills that have been shown in clinical trials to treat COVID-19 will help bring about the end of the pandemic.

One the pills, manufactured by Pfizer Inc, has been shown to cut rates of hospitalization and death by nearly 90 percent.

The drugmaker’s candidate, which is called PF-07321332, belongs to a class of drugs known as protease inhibitors.

The pill would work by inhibiting an enzyme that the coronavirus uses to make copies of itself inside human cells.

Researchers announced clinical trial data on Friday that found just 0.8 percent of patients given the pill were hospitalized compared to seven percent of those given a placebo.

Additionally, there were no deaths in the treatment group and compared to 10, or 1.6 percent in the placebo group.

And last month, Merck announced clinical trial results of its own experimental COVID-19 pill called molnupiravir.

The drug works by stopping the virus from making copies of itself, which prevents it from spreading throughout the body.

Results showed it can halve the chances of death or being hospitalized for those most at risk of contracting a severe case of Covid.

The study found 7.3 percent of the treatment group were either hospitalized or died at the end of 30 days, compared with 14.1 percent of those getting a dummy pill.

On Thursday, molnupiravir received regulatory approval in the UK, the first country to green light the drug.

Pfizer said it plans to submit U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) soon while Merck’s drug will be discussed at an FDA meeting on November 30.

‘I think the bottom line is the end of the end of the pandemic as least as it relates to the United States, is in sight right now given all the tools we have to combat this disease,’ Gottlieb, who sits on the board of Pfizer, said.

He said that the U.S. ‘still [has] to get through this Delta wave’ with cases rising in some states as people head indoors for the cold winter months.

But he says that after the end of the wave, which should be in about two months, the virus should be an endemic disease – meaning always circulating in the population but at low rates.

‘I think that this therapeutic and the other innovations that we’ve seen coming to market really mark the end of the pandemic for the United States,’ Gottlieb said.

‘And we need to think how we put that victory sign on the side of the White House, and we declare victory over this pandemic, at least here in the United States.’

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