Did you hear about Scott Gottlieb?

HEAVY IS THE SHIN THAT WEARS THE NOVELTY SOCK. (CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES)

Turns out he’s resigning from the top post at the FDA after two years on the job, and we have some questions.

• Why? According to Gottlieb himself, the weekly commute from his family home in Connecticut to FDA headquarters in suburban Maryland proved increasingly difficult. “There’s perhaps nothing that could pull me away from this role other than the challenge of being apart from family,” he wrote in a letter to staff.
• What does this mean for the drug industry? Gottlieb was widely admired in biopharma circles, both for his work and for the fact that he was a steady hand in an otherwise tumultuous administration. His departure, STAT’s Matt Herper and Adam Feuerstein write, “will give biotech a panic attack.” And like him or not, STAT's Ed Silverman writes, Gottlieb did speak his mind.
• Now what? Within minutes of the Gottlieb news began speculation, serious and otherwise, over who will replace him. On the one hand, biotech considers health secretary Alex Azar as a pragmatist who will advocate for a qualified successor. On the other hand, biotech does not consider President Trump that way.