What you need to know about Stephen Hahn 

If you’re still wondering, "who the heck is Stephen Hahn?" Lev and I have a new piece out today that looks at the Washington outsider in serious contention for the open FDA commissioner job. Hahn’s allies have a lot of positive things to say about him — he’s personable, a great delegator, and is essentially at the top of his career. But there’s also plenty that’s not so positive — namely, that he’s been involved in a number of high-profile scandals, one of which had him testifying before the House Veterans Affairs committee in 2009.

From all our research, there was a clear conclusion: despite having basically no Washington experience, Hahn’s political savvy for diffusing numerous scandals and the rate at which he has climbed the ranks of some of the nation’s largest academic research centers might just be enough to prepare him for the FDA’s top job. Read our profile here.

What’s behind this push for a new FDA commissioner?

My intrepid colleague Ed Silverman has a theory: In a new column for STAT, he argues that health secretary Alex Azar’s public search for a new FDA commissioner is his way of finally escaping out from Scott Gottlieb’s shadow.

As Ed puts it: “This could be a way for Alex Azar, the HHS secretary, to reassert himself by championing a choice that is not Gottlieb’s protege. Remember that Gottlieb arrived at the FDA before Azar became his new boss, and throughout the roughly 15 months that they overlapped, Gottlieb was regularly in the spotlight, outshining Azar, a former Eli Lilly executive with a healthy ego.” Read more here.