PRESS RELEASE: Heartland Institute Senior Policy Advisor Appointed by White House to a Top Post at FDA

Published August 24, 2020

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (August 24, 2020) – Dr. David Gortler, a senior healthcare policy advisor at The Heartland Institute, has been appointed to the Food and Drug Administration by the White House. Dr. Gortler PharmD, FCCP, is now serving as a senior advisor to FDA Commissioner Dr. Steven Hahn. 

Dr. Gortler, a former FDA medical officer in charge of approving new drugs and labeling changes, is the first PharmD pharmacist/pharmacologist to be appointed by the White House and serve as a senior advisor to the FDA Commissioner. 

“Over the past decades, The FDA has turned into a sclerotic bureaucracy that is thorough, but so slow to approve live-saving medicines and address important drug safety problems, that it ultimately deprives Americans of the latest available biotechnology” said Heartland Institute Vice President Jim Lakely. “David Gortler has established himself as a sharp, out-of-the-box thinker known for his communication and teaching skills and ability to address and solve complex problems.

“He is an easy-going and cordial gentleman to work with. I am sure he will bring a fresh perspective on important issues regarding drug approval, regulatory sciences and drug safety to the existing highly skilled executive leadership team at the FDA.”  

Dr. Gortler is a former Yale University and Georgetown University didactic professor of pharmacology and biotechnology, who had previously served as an FDA medical officer who has approved new drugs and labeling changes within the FDA’s Center of Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). Prior to that, Dr. Gortler was an investigational medicine research scientist at Pfizer Inc. in the areas of endocrinology and metabolism with a subspecialty in drug safety and drug metabolism. 

Dr. Gortler brings with him established, state-of-the-art expertise in the areas of drug development, Free To Choose Medicine, clinical and non-clinical drug safety, device safety and FDA regulatory affairs. He has a well-established scientific and clinical history, as well as a history of writing about well-thought through, common-sense policy reforms needed at the FDA

Dr. Gortler has formal education training in clinical pharmacy and basic science pharmacology, with a postdoctoral basic science research fellowship in molecular biology with an emphasis in vascular medicine from The Yale University School of Medicine, and clinical residency through The Columbia – New York Presbyterian Hospital System. 

Dr. Gortler has worked as an FDA/ healthcare policy advisor under the Obama administration and served as a science and policy advisor for the Ted Cruz presidential campaign. He conceptualized and founded the world’s first analytical pharmacy which advocated for and performed quality control testing on overseas raw ingredients and finished product pharmaceuticals. Not coincidently to that, he has long been a staunch advocate for FDA reform, with regards to the quality control of pharmaceutical products imported to the United States from China and India. He has also long been an advocate of bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the USA, an ideology now espoused by President Trump. 

To contact Dr. David Gortler, call Deputy Director of Communications Keely Drukala at [email protected] and 312/377-4000.

The Heartland Institute is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1984 and headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our website or call 312/377-4000.