Lauren Silvis, who served as chief of staff for former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, was chosen as a vaccine consultant to President Joe Biden's COVID-19 response team, her current employer confirmed to Becker's Hospital Review Feb. 24.
Ms. Silvis serves as senior vice president of external affairs at Tempus, a genomics-based diagnostic company headquartered in Chicago.
She previously served as chief of staff for Dr. Gottlieb from May 2017 to June 2019. Before that, she was deputy center director for policy in the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health from 2015 to 2017.
In her consultant role, she will be part of President Biden's team focused on implementing his pandemic response strategy. David Kessler, MD, chief science officer of COVID-19 response and former FDA commissioner, serves as a co-chair of the task force.
Dr. Gottlieb tweeted that Ms. Silvis promoted key initiatives to improve medical technology safety and modernize regulation of over-the-counter drugs, among other efforts, and will continue to contribute to U.S. public health.
"As FDA chief of staff, she was deeply committed to the agency's public health mission and helped us advance major efforts to reduce death and disease from tobacco, promote drug safety, improve generic competition," he wrote. "She'll bring her operational effectiveness to this critical role."
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