House wants FDA conflict of interest review

FDA has acknowledged that it granted an employee permission to provide paid consulting services for a biotech company that the agency regulated, a congressional committee reported Tuesday. In a letter to HHS, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce said it discovered that Emanuel Petricoin, co-director of the FDA/NIH clinical proteomics program, was given approval in 2002 to provide consulting services to biomarker company Biospect (South San Francisco, Calif.). The committee said it was recently told by FDA that the consulting was not permissible because FDA and HHS determined that Biospect (now named Predicant) is a "significantly regulated entity." The committee asked FDA to review its records from January 1, 1999, to present to determine if conflict of interest violations have occurred.

"FDA employees are generally prohibited from employment" with organizations it regulates, the committee said. It added that the case "raises the concern of whether the Biospect consulting agreement should have been approved in the first instance." ...