Inside the FDA: Vinay Prasad’s First Podcast Since Leaving Trump Admin on Drug Approvals & COVID

<p><strong>Inside the FDA: Vinay Prasad’s first podcast since leaving the admin on drug approvals, COVID, and market-moving science</strong></p><p>This week the pod has Dr. Vinay Prasad for his first interview since leaving as director of CBER, the FDA's vaccine division. With over 300k followers on X and one of the top science podcasts in the world, he's one of the most listened-to experts in the field. He might also have as many enemies as fans: biotech executives, certain patient groups, and even Trump's own administration are split on him. His statements have moved markets multiple times, and we are pretty sure there were a few hedge fund interns tasked with combing through all his podcast episodes the day he got appointed.</p><p>The pod gets into what it was like inside the administration, why he had to pause his podcast (government officials can't run their own media), and his famous thesis on evidence standards for drugs, especially rare disease ones.</p><p>The pod dives into a full COVID retro: how shutting down schools and masking was approached, where Vinay thinks the evidence actually pointed, and what he would have done in Fauci's position. They go deep on specific studies, like the Bangladesh mask study, and what might alter the effectiveness of a mask.</p><p>The conversation even gets philosophical: your personal right to decide what goes into your body: whether it's vaccines, transgender drugs, or something else, versus the general public good, as well as what doctors think is in your best interest.</p><p>Finally, the pod asks Vinay what America's healthcare system would look like if he created it. You might be surprised by his affinity towards Bernie and a lot of generally populist policies that could fall on the left or the right, like getting lobbyist money out of FDA decisions.</p><p>They also cover some recent news in the space:</p><ul><li>Moderna popped ~150% after its Merck-partnered mRNA cancer vaccine hit its Phase 3 goals in melanoma, the first personalized mRNA cancer treatment to get there. Vinay breaks down what the press release does and doesn't say.</li><li>Kalshi announced you'll be able to trade on clinical trials, a more granular way to trade the results of therapeutics that you currently, by proxy, trade on public markets, especially with smaller biotech stocks. Sign up at <a href="http://kalshi.com/sign-up?referral=getthecheckkalshi.com/sign-up?referral=getthecheck" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">kalshi.com