More Competitive Salaries Will Improve FDA/Industry Interactions – Crawford

FDA staff communications to industry will be more consistent as a result of reduced turnover caused by improvements to salary structure, according to Acting Commissioner Lester Crawford, PhD.

"The salary structure at FDA has been totally transformed over the last three years," Crawford told The Cleveland Clinic Foundation 2004 Medical Innovations Summit Oct. 20. "So, at least for the short term, you will see more consistency" on informal guidance during product development and review.

Crawford added that over the past four years, he and former commissioner Mark McClellan, MD/PhD, adjusted the salary structure "in such a way that it cannot be dismantled...because you cannot just take that away from [employees] at this point."

Since 2000, Crawford and McClellan have successfully lobbied the White House to increase the maximum salary of FDA scientists from $150,000 to $225,000.

The higher cap has alleviated stress on FDA's salary structure, insofar as NIH staff is allowed to enter consulting arrangements with industry, boosting their incomes above those of top officials at other agencies. "People were leaving [FDA] in droves" for NIH, Crawford remarked.

Nevertheless, FDA's annual employee turnover rate is a healthy 8%, allowing the agency "to manage any material changes in [its] personnel profile."

If an FDAer is "heavily recruited by Pfizer or somebody like that, we [can] add a one-time amount [or] retention bonus." That can be "very impressive," Crawford noted.

Separately, Crawford acknowledged that interagency plans to better align regulatory processes at FDA and CMS - now headed by McClellan - have fallen short of expectations. "Of all the things we have tackled in these last three years...this is probably the thing that we have done least well." FDA has concluded that the possibility of extensive data-sharing with CMS is beset with trade secret complications.