Vinay
Prasad
M.D., M.P.H.
Leadership Role
Chief Medical and Scientific Officer - Office of the Commissioner
Director - Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER)
Vinayak (Vinay) Kashyap Prasad M.D., M.P.H., serves as both the agency’s Chief Medical and Scientific Officer and as the Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER).
As Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, Dr. Prasad advises the FDA Commissioner and other senior officials on cross-cutting and emerging medical and scientific issues impacting regulatory science and public health. He provides strategic input and leadership on trans-center working groups and initiatives, ensuring scientific consistency and integration across FDA centers and builds partnerships with academic, governmental, and industry stakeholders. Dr. Prasad also provides senior medical and scientific input to the FDA Commissioner on cross-center medical policy and regulatory decisions, and acts as a senior medical and scientific representative at national, international, or advisory committee meetings and forums related to public health, regulatory science, and innovation.
In his role as Director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), Dr. Prasad supervises the FDA’s work regulating biological products for human use under applicable federal laws. The Center works to advance the public health by ensuring that biological products are safe and effective and available to those who need them and to provide the public with information to promote their safe and appropriate use.
Dr. Prasad comes to the FDA from The University of California at San Francisco, where he has served since 2020 as a professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Before that, Dr. Prasad was a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology and the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. His specialty is hematology and oncology. Before entering academia, Dr. Prasad had a Fellowship in Cancer Prevention at the National Cancer Institute and prior to that he was a Fellow in Oncology at the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Prasad has published more than 500 academic articles, done extensive research in the field of oncology, and has presented at hundreds of scientific and medical conferences. He is the author of the books, “Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People with Cancer” and “Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives.” He was the host of the oncology podcast “Plenary Session” and ran The Drug Development Letter.
Dr. Prasad graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Science in Physiology and Philosophy. He received his M.D. from the University of Chicago Division of Biological Sciences Pritzker School of Medicine, with an Internship and Residency in Internal Medicine at Northwestern University, and a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.