iJanet Woodcock, M.D. was named Acting Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on January 20, 2021. Since late 2020, Dr. Woodcock has split her time between advising “Operation Warp Speed” on advancing COVID-19 therapeutics and serving as the Principal Medical Advisor to former FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn. She first joined FDA in 1984 as Director of the Division of Biological Investigational New Drugs in the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER).
Dr. Woodcock has a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, and a Doctor of Medicine from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, IL. She is board certified in internal medicine.
